Anglo-Indian Identity: Past and Present, in India and the Diaspora 9783030644574, 9783030644581

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Anglo-Indian Identity Past and Present, in India and the Diaspora Edited by  Robyn Andrews · Merin Simi Raj

Anglo-Indian Identity

Robyn Andrews  •  Merin Simi Raj Editors

Anglo-Indian Identity Past and Present, in India and the Diaspora

Editors Robyn Andrews Social Anthropology Programme Massey University Palmerston North, New Zealand

Merin Simi Raj Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, India

ISBN 978-3-030-64457-4    ISBN 978-3-030-64458-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Image of the ‘Anglo-Indian flag’ courtesy of Uther Charlton-Stevens This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge our gratitude for the invaluable contribution of numerous Anglo-Indians who participated in the research presented in this volume. In addition, we thank the contributing authors, without whom there would be no book! We are immensely grateful to Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras or IITM), for the Exploratory Research Grant sponsored by the Centre for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (IC&SR) which offered a generous funding towards the conduct of two International Conferences on Anglo-Indian Studies (August 2017 and August 2018). The support offered by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Office of International and Alumni Relations IIT Madras is also duly acknowledged with much gratitude. We thank Dr Avishek Parui, the Faculty Coordinator (with Dr Merin Simi Raj) of Memory Studies Research Network at IIT Madras, for organising a series of follow-up events on Anglo-Indian Studies, featuring Dr Uther Charlton-Stevens, Dr Robyn Andrews and the Anglo-Indian writer Keith Butler as main speakers, thereby generating a larger interest in Anglo-Indian studies among the student community in IIT Madras as well as in the academic fraternity in Chennai. We also note the support of two other organisations that contributed to the IITM conferences in various ways: Anglo-Ink, Chennai and New Zealand India Research Institute (NZIRI). I, Merin, sincerely acknowledge and thank everyone who were part of this journey in more ways than one. I particularly thank Harry McLure of Anglo-Ink who introduced me to the Anglo-Indian community in v

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Chennai, the interactions with whom I value academically as well personally. I owe much to my parents and my brother for their invaluable support. I fondly acknowledge Priyanka and little Mishuk for being there, just a call away. I thank Joe, for the genuine involvement, practical guidance and much else. I am thankful for Paul and Rechu, for their honest, endless excitement towards everything I do, all the time. I thank the Almighty, for His unfailing presence. I, Robyn, am most appreciative of the research leave and funds granted by Massey University, New Zealand, and for the Asia New Zealand Foundation Research Grant which enabled my research in New Zealand. I acknowledge the valuable critiques and suggestions from Anglo-Indian studies colleagues and look forward to future collaborations and opportunities to get together. I thank friends and family, especially my daughters for their consistent interest in my projects, and Keith for his enthusiastic encouragement with this endeavour and for so much more. We acknowledge anonymous reviewers of the manuscript and various chapters, and in some cases, the original publishers for their permission to republish some work here. They are also acknowledged, where relevant, by individual chapter authors. We are grateful to the editorial staff at Palgrave Macmillan for their assistance and professionalism.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Merin Simi Raj and Robyn Andrews Part I Identities: Historical  15 2 The Politics of Representation: Identity, Community and Anglo-Indian Associations in South Asia 17 Nagorao Zapate 3 Which Eurasians May Speak? Elite Politics, the Lower Classes and Contested Eurasian Identity 37 Brent Howitt Otto 4 The End of Greater Anglo-India: Partitioned Anglo Identities in Burma and Pakistan 63 Uther Charlton-Stevens Part II Identities in Contemporary India 109 5 Is the Anglo-Indian ‘Identity Crisis’ a Myth?111 Robyn Andrews

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6 Citizenship, Legitimacy, and Identity: Kolkata AngloIndian Experiences131 Robyn Andrews Part III Diasporic Identities 153 7 Immigration Rhetoric and Public Discourse in the Construction of Anglo-Indian Identity in Britain155 Rochelle Almeida 8 Anglo-Indians of New Zealand: Colour and the Social Construction of Identity177 Robyn Andrews 9 The Dilemma of Anglo-Indian Identity in Pakistan205 Dorothy McMenamin 10 From Asansol to Sydney: Terry Morris, Microhistory and Hybrid Identity231 Arindam Das Part IV Gendered Identities 251 11 The Personal Can Be Political: Deconstructing Representations of Anglo-Indians253 Dolores Chew 12 Anglo-Indian Women in Teaching: The Interplay of Gender, Profession, Community Identities and Religiosity279 Jyothsna Latha Belliappa and Sanchia deSouza 13 A Queer Encounter with Anglo-Indians: Some Thoughts on National (Non)Belonging303 Carolyn D’Cruz

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Part V Identities in the Arts: Literature, Film and Performance 321 14 Identity and Homing Desire: Anglo-Indian Literary Perspectives323 Shyamasri Maji 15 ‘Not Knowing for How Much Longer’: Requiem for the Living as an Act of Cultural Recovery of the Paranki Community in Kerala343 Merin Simi Raj and Avishek Parui 16 Daivathinte Vikruthikal: Homelessness and Fragmented Identities of Indo-French Families in Mahé, Post-1954371 Sreya Ann Oommen 17 Mixed Feelings: Autoethnography, Affect and AngloIndian Creative Practice391 Glenn D’Cruz 18 Fictionalised Identities: Remodelling Anglo-Indians409 Jade Furness Index427

Notes on Contributors

Rochelle  Almeida  a postcolonial literary specialist, is Professor of the Humanities in Global Liberal Studies at New York University. She is the author of Originality and Imitation: Indianness in the Novels of Kamala Markandaya (2000), The Politics of Mourning: Grief-Management in Cross-Cultural Fiction (2004) and Britain’s Anglo-Indians: The Invisibility of Assimilation (2017) and co-editor of Global Secularisms in a Post-­ Secular Age (2016), Curtain Call: Anglo-Indian Reflections (2016), an individually edited anthology Goa: A Post-Colonial Society Between Cultures (2018) and a fictional memoir The Year the World Was Mine (2019). Almeida was a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellow in Bombay. Robyn  Andrews is a senior lecturer in the Social Anthropology Programme at Massey University, New Zealand. Her PhD, Being Anglo-­ Indian: Practices and Stories from Calcutta (2005), was the first of a number of Anglo-Indian studies projects she has been involved with in India and the diaspora. She published Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian Stories and Essays (2014) and writes articles and book chapters for both academic and community publications. With Brent H. Otto, she co-edits the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies. Jyothsna  Latha  Belliappa  is a faculty member of the School of New Humanities and Design at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru, India. She has previously published on teachers and teaching, the information technology industry, identity and on the interaction between work and personal life. Her book Gender, Class and Reflexive Modernity in India (Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2013) discusses xi

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how women employed in Bengaluru’s IT industry create a sense of self by drawing on multiple discourses prevalent within contemporary India. Uther Charlton-Stevens  is professor at the Institute of World Economy and Finance, Volgograd State University, Russia, a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the author of Anglo-­ Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism (2018). His second book, Anglo-India and the End of Empire, is under contract with Hurst Publishers. Charlton-Stevens completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford on ‘Decolonising Anglo-Indians: Strategies for a Mixed-Race Community in Late Colonial India During the First Half of the Twentieth Century’, under the supervision of Judith Brown and Francis Robinson. Dolores Chew  is a research associate of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Concordia University. She was born and raised in Kolkata, India, and now lives in Montreal, Canada. She is a member of the faculty at Marianopolis College where she teaches History and Humanities and where she is also the Liberal Arts Program Coordinator. She is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies and of Labour, Capital and Society/Travail, and capital et société. She assisted in the establishment of the Derozio Anglo-Indian Research Collection at Central Library, University of Calcutta. Carolyn D’Cruz  is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Sexuality and Diversity Studies at La Trobe University, Australia. She is author of Identity Politics in Deconstruction: Calculating with the Incalculable (2016) and Democracy in Difference: Debating Key Terms in Gender, Sexuality, Race and Identity (2020). Glenn  D’Cruz  is Associate Professor of Art and Performance in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University, Australia. His most recent books include Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis (2018) and Teaching Postdramatic Theatre: Anxieties, Aporias and Dispositions (Palgrave, 2018). He has been a visiting scholar at the Australian National University (2005) and City University New  York (2018). His creative work has been performed and/or exhibited at Federation Square, Melbourne, the RMIT Gallery, Walker Street Gallery, Federation Hall, VCA and the Gertrude Street Gallery in Melbourne.

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Arindam Das  is an associate professor in the School of Business, Alliance University, Bangalore, India. While pursuing his PhD in Australian Aboriginal Studies, he was a recipient of the Australia India Council Australian Studies Fellowship in 2010–2011. His interests lie with cultural studies, semiotics, postcolonial studies, cultural and organisational communication, consumer culture studies and critical marketing. He has contributed to internationally acclaimed journals like the Journal of Postcolonial Writing and Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia. He is co-editing a special issue on ‘Pandemics and Consumer Well-being’ in The Journal of Consumer Affairs. Sanchia deSouza  is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation examines urban development, food supply and human-animal relationships through a history of milk in Bombay, 1890–1970. Jade Furness  is a retired academic librarian from New Zealand. Her initial research interest in Anglo-Indian writer Allan Sealy’s fiction stemmed, in part, from the exploration into her own great grandmother’s Anglo-­ Indian lineage. Furness holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Massey University, New Zealand (2012). Her thesis Where the Postmodern Meets the Postcolonial: Allan Sealy’s Fiction After The Trotter-nama examined Sealy’s novels: Hero, The Everest Hotel, The Brainfever Bird and Red. Her research essay, ‘The Forms and Functions of Hybridity in Allan Sealy’s The Trotter-nama’, was published in 2012  in the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies. Shyamasri Maji  is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Durgapur Women’s College (affiliated to Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol), West Bengal, India. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Burdwan (India). The title of her doctoral thesis is Anxiety of Representation in Select Anglo-Indian Writers. Areas of her research interest include diasporic studies, postcolonial literature and the Anglo-Indian community. She is the recipient of Independent Research Fellowship 2018–2019 at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. Dorothy Mcmenamin  PhD, is from the Department of History & Art History, University of Otago, New Zealand. Her doctoral thesis explored Anglo-Indian lives in Pakistan (2019) and MA thesis from University of Canterbury generated Leprosy and Stigma in the South Pacific (2011). As

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a freelance oral historian, writings included Raj Days to Downunder: Anglo-Indian Voices from Anglo India to New Zealand (2010, 2019). She is a founding member and past vice-president of the New Zealand South Asia Centre, University of Canterbury, where she lectured on Indian history intermittently between 1998 and 2019. She was born in Pakistan, migrated, and lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Sreya  Ann  Oommen  is a PhD scholar at the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India. Her work centres on Island Studies, Memory and Culture, Malayalam Literature, Film Adaptations, and Eco Literature. Her research currently focuses on the articulation of islandness in literatures from and about islands, with special attention to the ways in which the placeness of island spaces affects the narratives. Brent  Howitt  Otto  is a PhD candidate in South Asian History at the University of California, Berkeley. His research centres on Anglo-Indian migration and diaspora and ritual and community in South Indian ecclesial history. At Berkeley Otto has taught Indian history, global history and the history of religion. He is published in two Anglo-Indian Studies volumes, the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits, and elsewhere on religion in the lives of Anglo-Indians stemming from collaborative research with Robyn Andrews. He co-edits the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies. Avishek Parui  (PhD, Durham, UK) is Assistant Professor of English at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and associate fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He is Faculty Coordinator, Memory Studies Research Network IIT Madras along with Merin Simi Raj. He has researched and published widely on memory studies, modernism, masculinity studies and medical humanities. He is the author of Postmodern Literatures (2018) and is contracted with Rowman & Littlefield for his second book titled Culture and the Literary: Matter, Metaphor, Memory. He is the Principal Investigator of an exploratory research project titled ‘Sleepless Cities: An Interdisciplinary Research in Urban Studies, Brain Science, and Medical Humanities’. Merin Simi Raj  (PhD, IIT Bombay) is Assistant Professor of English at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Faculty Coordinator, Memory Studies Research Network IIT Madras along with Avishek Parui. Her research interests include memory studies, historiography and moder-

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nity studies and digital humanities. She was the Principal Investigator of an exploratory research project titled ‘A Transnational Narrative History of the Anglo-Indian Community in India and the Diaspora’. She has received training in digital humanities (Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), data curation and linked data) from the Centre for Digital Scholarship and Digital Humanities, University of Oxford. Nagorao  Zapate holds a PhD in Modern Indian History from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was a junior research fellow of Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. His thesis centred around the consumption patterns and socio-cultural transformation in Colonial Maharashtra. His areas of interest are the political economy and socio-cultural history of Modern India.

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5

‘The Anglo-Indian Force, 1916’, Cover illustration. (Robbie 1919) 66 The Friis Browne Family—varied complexions among sisters. (Courtesy of Rebecca Calderon) 75 Map of the 88 branches of Gidney’s Association across the Indian Empire in 1929, including four affiliated Burma branches (Anglo-Indian Review, November 1929, p. 22) 88 Henry Gidney (middle) leaving Buckingham Palace after an audience with the King following the third Round Table Conference93 Members of the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India), Peshawar, 1942. Anthony complained to Lady Wavell that although ‘80% of those women were Anglo-Indians … [and] barely 15% British people … all the upper ranks were only British’ (MSS EUR R193/1, Anthony, 1987–1988). The small proportion who came from other Indian communities generally opted for the sari variant of the WAC(I) uniform. (Photo courtesy of Charles Harvey, with additional thanks to Dorothy McMenamin)97

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Merin Simi Raj and Robyn Andrews

Starting Points In early August 2017, we, Merin Simi Raj and Robyn Andrews, convened an Anglo-Indian Studies conference at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM). We planned for a three-day event; so as to ensure enough interest, our call for papers was broad. The response was overwhelming, not just from academics but also from journalists, writers and independent researchers who were interested in the stories, scholarship and lives of the Anglo-Indian community. Receiving over two hundred abstracts, we had underestimated the number of scholars working in the area and created for ourselves the daunting task of selecting just thirty papers from this large pool. Building upon the success of this conference, and thanks to the support offered once again from IIT Madras, we organised another event the

M. S. Raj (*) Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India e-mail: [email protected] R. Andrews Social Anthropology Programme, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_1

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following year, this time with a much more focussed call. It was still considerably oversubscribed. The first Anglo-Indian conference opened up a series of discussions on what constitutes Anglo-Indianness and what is at stake when particular variables are seen as markers of Anglo-Indian identity. For instance, there were a few Anglo-Indian attendees who maintained that being a native speaker of English was a requisite, in alignment with the current All India Anglo-Indian Association (AIAIA) definition as well as Frank Anthony’s arguments from pre-Independence days. Against this overdetermining language-marker of identity, there were counter arguments particularly from Anglo-Indians from Kerala based on the Constitution’s definition, which does not designate English as the required mother tongue of Anglo-­ Indians. While discussing the question ‘Who is an Anglo-Indian?’ the positions even of ‘insiders’ to the community were sometimes so radically different and distinct that the non-homogenous identity of the community came to the fore. By the end of that first conference, and reinforced in the second, all interpretations appeared to point to heterogeneity, underlining the complexity and mutability of the Anglo-Indian identity, which emerged as plural, polyphonic and discursive in quality. This brought the ontological and experiential categories of Anglo-Indian-ness under scrutiny in challenging and productive ways. While the transnational nature of the identity as well as the history of the Anglo-Indians were always talked about in scholarship, the conference discussions also foregrounded the need to look into local histories, micro-­ narratives and individual stories, much of which was not available or sufficiently documented in the extant scholarship on Anglo-Indians. The range of texts, sites and archives that were explored in the conference papers and discussions was also fascinating and convinced us of the need for an interdisciplinary volume that would focus on Anglo-Indian identity through the disciplines of literature, history and anthropology, and the lenses of diaspora, nation, region, gender and class. The conferences initiated such a conversation about identity, and this volume seeks to extend it and widen its circle of scholarly participants. The idea for a book, with an identity focus, thus begun to take shape, conditioned by our concern that the Anglo-Indians and their stories should be presented from a nuanced perspective and not straightjacketed by particular definitions, disciplines, narratives, genres and theories. The interdisciplinary nature of this venture led us to invite scholars working in

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the area of Anglo-Indian Studies to make their contributions. In the end the following set of eighteen chapters is a combination of contributions from IIT Madras conference attendees, as well as some others by invitation.

The Question of Identity As editors of this book we first approached the question of Anglo-Indian identity as ‘outsiders’ to the community and with the training of two different disciplines: Anthropology and Literary Studies. In multiple ways this convergence of disciplines was particularly enabling, helping us to push past disciplinary boundaries while engaging with the Anglo-Indian community and also with scholarship that has emerged only very recently, for instance, Memory Studies and Gender Studies that draw on related theoretical frames such as Affect Theory and Material Engagement Theory. This volume includes contributions from different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to discussions arising at the conferences, the broader scholarship on Anglo-Indians features too, across a range of research frames: what it means to be an Anglo-Indian in India as well as in other parts of the world; how gender impacts on an experience of being Anglo-Indian; representations of the community and individual members in media such as literature and film; how their history informs the ways Anglo-Indians view themselves and are viewed by others. In constructing this volume, we are also aware of the many ‘outliers’, the knowledge networks on this subject that lie outside of the conventional academic frames; for example, drawing on as well as appearing as photographs, letters and memoirs, which are being curated by independent researchers and well-wishers from the community as well as outside of it. We believe this engagement with such material is also contributing valuably to scholarly understanding of Anglo-Indian identity, giving it more experiential qualities, which often offer more complex and nuanced perspectives. The term ‘identity’ carries an ambiguity which enhances the project at hand. Etymologically, it can be traced to the Latin word idem meaning ‘the same’ or the ‘quality of being identical’ and is defined in dictionaries as ‘a distinguishing character or personality of an individual’, but this essentially highlights a set of qualities that sets a person or a group apart from others. Thus, ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ are both implied by the term identity, simultaneously demonstrating the problematic and the possibility inherent in the term. An aim of this volume is also to celebrate the sameness and differences of many Anglo-Indian identities.

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This leads us to the official definition of Anglo-Indians as a constitutionally recognised community of mixed descent with a history of close to five hundred years. As per the Constitution of India Article 366(2), ‘an Anglo Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only’. This definition does not always sit conveniently with the popular and cultural definitions of Anglo-Indians where other variables such as language, lifestyle and even regional locations play a role in determining ‘Anglo-Indianness’. Further, the patrilineal clause in the definition complicates this identity, as chapters in this book elaborate upon and respond to in critical and sensitive ways. The conferences and subsequent interactions also foregrounded the gaps and challenges in pursuing Anglo-Indian Studies. Given that there is a growing number of students interested in researching the community in India and the diaspora, a volume like this offers a road map for navigating through this otherwise vast and diverse history of a community whose identity often tends to be seen as homogenous, and thereby more susceptible to stereotypical representations. They are also an easy target of those who conflate mixed descent with uncertainty about their own identity, purporting that Anglo-Indians have some sort of ‘identity crisis’, even after centuries of Anglo-Indians being a distinct and recognised community in their own right. In the diaspora, on the other hand, they are relatively unknown or even ‘invisible’ as Rochelle Almeida and others purport (Almeida, Bonnerjee, Andrews). At the same time there are also Anglo-­ Indian communities, particularly of non-British descent, with Dutch, French and Portuguese ancestors whose history, lives and stories continue to be relegated to the margins of the dominant organisational, cultural and political understanding of Anglo-Indian identity.

The Current State of Scholarship This interdisciplinary and transnational approach towards understanding Anglo-Indians in India and the diaspora is particularly significant in the contemporary period when Anglo-Indians are variously identified as, on the one hand, victims of the post-colonial condition, ‘midnight’s orphans’, as Glenn D’Cruz famously stated in his book of the same title (2006), and on the other hand, as the first ‘modern Indians’ (Sealy 2007), well

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positioned to take advantage of their considerable capitals, including their (mostly) English language competency, access to excellent educational facilities and urban lifestyle. Anglo-Indian Studies is flourishing from a sound base of existing scholarship. As this collection demonstrates, the current focus on Anglo-Indian Studies is global. This continues the trend of international interest, with significant earlier scholars from the UK, the US, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and India writing on diasporic issues, nationalism, citizenship, post-coloniality, minority politics and assimilation, among others. The scholarship has also produced very detailed ethnographic accounts focusing on particular Anglo-Indian locations such as the railway colonies, and on cities such as Kolkata and Chennai, thereby providing a local flavour to global scholarship. This list is expanding with a growing interest in the community, its narratives and its various sites and texts, from considerable numbers of students in India and abroad. In addition, the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, co-­ edited by Robyn Andrews and Brent H. Otto, also showcases ongoing research on the community from different disciplinary perspectives. Founded in 1996 it was the first, and is still the only, journal dedicated to Anglo-Indian Studies. As such it is a significant platform and resource for students and researchers. Another milestone for Anglo-Indian Studies scholarship was the inauguration of the Derozio Anglo-Indian Research Collection at the University of Calcutta in 2013. It is in the context of these endeavours that we take this opportunity to suggest that this scholarly volume will initiate discussions towards the inclusion of Anglo-Indian Studies in university syllabi, thereby introducing students to this emergent and distinct domain.

What this Work Offers Presenting the work from Anglo-Indian as well as non-Anglo-Indian perspectives, this work offers a critical approach to Anglo-Indian identity from a range of geographical and temporal perspectives. In a unique way, this work situates itself as an intermediary, facilitating interdisciplinary as well as transnational approaches to Anglo-Indian Studies, on which the future of this promising field also rests. As a volume it is multi-disciplinary and theoretically rich in ways not easily accomplished in a single authored work, or even an edited work from a single discipline. This is evident in the range of disciplines drawn on as well as the intersection of various studies

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and theoretical frameworks, including Microhistory, Whiteness Studies’, Memory Studies, Theatre Studies and Gender Studies. This volume explores the question of identity of Anglo-Indians of British, French and Portuguese descent as well as from different diasporic locations such as New Zealand, Britain, Australia, Pakistan and Burma among others. Identity is examined as being representative, performative, affective and experiential through different interpretative frameworks as well as methodologies.

Organisation and Overview of the Book The book comprises five sections exploring identity issues, in particular, temporal, geographic, thematic and formal contexts: historical, contemporary India, the diaspora, through a gender lens and in the arts——literature, film and stage. Of course, some chapters overspill the sections to which they have been assigned. For example, three chapters (by Maji, D’Cruz, and Furness) are in the last section on the arts but also illuminate aspects of what it means to be an Anglo-Indian living in the diaspora. While Chew’s chapter is situated in the section on gendered identities, it includes a comprehensive review of gendered accounts in the literary arts. Otto’s chapter, in the historical section, constructs a history of the Anglo-­ Indian self-fashioning of group identity by zeroing in on a revelatory literary product, an early-nineteenth-century poem.

Identities: Historically The first section examines Anglo-Indian identity in India over the last two centuries, up to mid-twentieth century. The chapters in this section draw from archival historical research, including some barely known records, letters, news reports, a poem, interviews and early community publications. The authors use these to narrate the ebbs and flows of being in and out of favour with prevailing authorities, according to shifting political power, all of which impacted Anglo-Indian identity. The areas explored include political organisation, who among Anglo-Indians were allowed to speak on behalf of the community, and the difference geographic location made to the experience of being Anglo-Indian. Nagorao Zapate, opens this section with his chapter ‘The Politics of Representation: Identity, Community and Anglo-Indian Associations in South Asia’, drawing on census reports, government orders, official

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reports, newspapers and archived copies of the All India Anglo-Indian Association’s publication, The Review. Through these he documents the dynamics and strategies various groups employed to safeguard the socio-­ economic and cultural interests of Anglo-Indians and gain political representation in colonial and post-colonial India. The next chapter, by Brent Howitt Otto, employs a poem, The Eurasian Anthem, published anonymously in 1826, to examine the articulation of Anglo-Indian identity in its historical context. He raises questions about the subaltern and elite voices embedded or implied in the poem to understand who was positioned to speak for Anglo-Indians. The apparent contestation of Anglo-Indian identity as well as who has the power to represent it, of which the poem is an early example, Otto demonstrates are neuralgic points of contention which continue to evolve right up to Indian Independence. In his chapter Uther Charlton-Stevens charts the evolution of ‘Anglo’ identities across the Indian Empire. He explores attempts to forge a single cohesive group and political organisation in order to face the challenges of Indianisation and Burmanisation of Anglo-Indian employment. He describes the differences between ethnic Anglo-Indians and Anglo-­ Burmans and between their closely intertwined politics through war, displacement and consecutive partitions that tore asunder the broader imaginative space of Anglo-India, and pushed political leaders to attempt to shift and reformulate their constituents’ identities to meet the challenge of rising divergent nationalisms in Burma, India and Pakistan. As he concludes, these early Anglo identities and the implications of two processes of bifurcation provide a crucial basis for understanding subsequent divergent evolutions of Anglo-Indian identity in different diasporic settings.

Identities in Contemporary India From the historical we move to the contemporary situation in India. Both chapters in this section are authored by Robyn Andrews, an anthropologist with two decades of research experience with Anglo-Indians, mostly in Kolkata which these chapters reflect. Just as there is no monolithic ‘Indian’ identity, the same must be said of Anglo-Indians. As such, in this section, particular issues are examined rather than seeking to reveal the myriad of ways to be Anglo-Indian, and what that means in contemporary India.

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In her first chapter in this section, Andrews questions the notion of an Anglo-Indian ‘identity crisis’ noting that it has become something of a cliché in writings about Anglo-Indians. She claims this notion has been foisted on Anglo-Indians from outsiders who themselves too easily embrace the concept as they do not understand how Anglo-Indians understand themselves. So, the identity problem is theirs, rather than Anglo-­ Indians’. She builds an argument that Anglo-Indians identify securely as Anglo-Indian, living comfortably ‘with the hyphen’, rather than feeling compelled to either side of it. In her second chapter Andrews raises questions about the place of Anglo-Indians in the modern Indian nation, and therefore the interplay between their nationality and identity. She draws on Anthony’s claim that they are ‘Anglo-Indian by community and Indian by nationality’(Anthony 1969), as well as India’s constitutionally enshrined secularism, to argue that they have every right to identify as both, but asks, do they feel this? Do they feel both Anglo-Indian and Indian? In the last decade, she notes that various events, from changes in government to demonetisation, may have eroded their sense of national identification. She draws on two case studies to exemplify the ways in which Anglo-Indians can be, and have been, ‘successful’ in maintaining their identity as both Indian and Anglo-­ Indian. This chapter was written prior to January 2020 when Anglo-­ Indian political representation was officially removed, but a trajectory was already clear.

Diasporic Identities In the section focussed on diasporic Anglo-Indians the chapters present investigations into life for Anglo-Indians in, respectively, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Pakistan and Australia. There are clear themes across these chapters such as Anglo-Indians not being visible to the majority populations, assimilation, discrimination, and the maintenance of traditions. The relative concentration of Anglo-Indians in a place helps determine how able they are to get together and ‘be’ Anglo-Indian in their new homes. The impact of local immigration policies is seen in several chapters to play a part, both in whether they can immigrate in the first place, and then in their experiences as the policies reflect and are influenced by social attitudes towards newcomers. Beginning with the United Kingdom, Rochelle Almeida’s chapter draws on interviews with UK-resident Anglo-Indians to examine the

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historical experiences of Britain’s Anglo-Indians within the context of wide-ranging and at times hostile rhetoric in relation to immigrants. She charts changes to immigration policy over the period from Indian Independence when Anglo-Indians arrived in large numbers until recent times. In comparison with other migrant groups, she argues, that for all their challenges, Anglo-Indians have fared well. Their associations and clubs demonstrate that they are able to practice being Anglo-Indians at least when they spend time together in these institutionalised public ways. Robyn Andrews finds that one of the unique features of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand is their misidentification as Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous people. Based on a Whiteness Studies framework, Andrews argues in this chapter that many of their experiences of identity, and more broadly, are due to them being ‘not quite white’. The relatively small numbers of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand mean that they have fewer opportunities to spend time together but their profile appears to be rising, which may change their degree of social organisation. Dorothy McMenamin takes us back to the subcontinent, to Pakistan, where she was born and has conducted research on the Anglo-Indian community there. They are not identified by that nomenclature for reasons which she addresses. Their experiences post-Independence, McMenamin argues, have been quite different to those in India and generally positive. As an historian, she traces the emergence of this relatively new nation, how it changed over the first few decades and the ways in which Anglo-Indians who were already living there were affected. There is almost nothing written of Pakistani Anglo-Indians, so McMenamin breaks new ground through her work. Arindam Das writes of Terry Morris, an Anglo-Indian from Asansol, India, who migrated to Australia where he has become a well-known song writer and performer. Drawing on microhistory methodology, he traces Morris’s personal trajectory in tandem with that of the wider population of Anglo-Indians in Australia. Morris has identified at different times as Anglo-Indian, Indian and Australian, mirroring the varied narratives of identity in which Anglo-Indians participate.

Gendered Identities The next section, subtitled gendered identities, includes explorations of the impact of gender in this community, although this is not the only lens called upon. Of the three chapters, one explores nationalism and how it

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intersects with gendered identity. Another focusses squarely on the effect being Anglo-Indian has on a group of women in the teaching profession. The third draws on experience of being of a minority gender to tease out what it means to be a member of the ethnic minority community of Anglo-Indians. Dolores Chew, an Anglo-Indian scholar and activist, has written on patriarchy, colonialism and nationalism and draws on an insider’s gendered experience. In her chapter she highlights stereotypes assigned to members of the community, tracing the sexual objectification of women and emasculation of men as persistent tropes in literature from Raj times to the post-colonial times. She argues that the lens of nationalism and the concept of the nation contribute a great deal to understanding how Anglo-­ Indians have been situated and represented in the past as well as today. In the chapter by Jyothsna Belliappa and Sanchia deSouza the authors write of Anglo-Indian female teachers in Bangalore, arguing that their gendered, community and religious identity gives them cultural capital deployable into a range of educational employment opportunities. They argue that while they have a degree of agency and are sought after due to the recognition of their talents and work ethic, they can encounter obstacles to well-remunerated employment both in Anglo-Indian schools and in others’ schools, for varying reasons which they explore. To examine certain Anglo-Indian identity concerns in her chapter Carol D’Cruz recalls her early sense of ‘unbelonging’ as an Anglo-Indian in Britain and Australia, in tandem with her recent experience of an Anglo-­ Indian World Reunion in India. In her methodologically ground-breaking chapter she achieves this by looking to ‘gender non-conforming identities’ in order to broaden discussions about Anglo-Indians as ‘culturally non-­ conforming Indian subjects’. By drawing on LGBTIQA+ (Queer) scholarship and bringing them into dialogue with Anglo-Indian apprehensions and concerns, she frames a new way of looking at Anglo-Indian identity, especially in India.

Identities in the Arts: Literature, Film and Performance The last section comprises a set of five chapters which focus on Anglo-­ Indian identities in the arts: literature, film and performance. Anglo-­ Indian representation in literature and film has been, at least tangentially,

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addressed in some other chapters in other sections, for example, Dolores Chew looks at how women in particular, but also men, are depicted in fiction in ways that reinforce existing stereotypes. What is distinct about the chapters in this section is that each focuses on a particular work, or very small set of works, rather than offering a survey, to look at an aspect of identity: homing desire of diasporic Anglo-Indians in one case, the little-­ known Anglo-Indians of Kerala’s Paranki community in another and Anglo-Indians of Mahé in a third. The last two chapters might be read as identity quests through the arts, with autoethnographic identity and non-­ narrative performance highlighted in one, and in the last, family identity sought through contemporary Anglo-Indian literature read against personal family history. These last two chapters also highlight a theme of Anglo-Indians in the diaspora seeking to understand more about their own and their families’ history and cultural identity. Shyamasri Maji examines identity and the desire for a ‘home’ through fictional accounts of Patricia McGready-Buffardi (2004), Jimmy Pyke (2014) and Keith Butler (2014). The authors are Anglo-Indians with the experience of living in India but who now live in the diaspora. Their main protagonists are also Anglo-Indian migrants engaging in what it means to be a diasporic Anglo-Indian. The works are set from the later colonial period through until contemporary times, and geographically, from India to the UK and Australia. Maji productively examines the diasporic literature through Avtar Brah’s (1996) framework, developed in analysing the problematic of identity for Britain’s non-white migrants and their discourse around ‘homeland’ versus home. The focus of Merin Simi Raj and Avishek Parui’s chapter is the little-­ known community of Parankis of Kerala, illuminated through the novella Requiem for the Living (2013) originally written in Malayalam by Johny Miranda. Introducing the idea of ‘identity-consumption’ as key to the remembered events from personal and collective memory, the authors demonstrate how this intergenerational tale of mixed-race identity and assimilation calls for a more nuanced and diverse understanding of Anglo-­ Indianness as well as a re-mapping of scholarship on Anglo-Indian studies. Through historiographic study and the theoretical frames of Memory Studies, this chapter foregrounds the politics of forgetting and re-­ appropriation in complex cultural contexts, pointing to the politics of privilege entangled with the discursive and material markers even within a supposedly minority identity.

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Continuing with the theme of revealing more about the little-known identity of particular Anglo-Indian groups is Sreya Oommen’s chapter on the mixed descent Indo-French group of Mahé. She examines the book Daivathinte Vikruthikal (originally published in 1989) by M. Mukundan (2002) and film adaptation by Lenin Rajendran (1992) revealing the history, challenges and stereotyping of this miniscule sub-community, within a minority community. The book and film are set in India, after the French have left the subcontinent, and demonstrate experiences typical for other Anglo-Indian groups. Mahé’s community are Christians, often misidentified and their history and culture misunderstood. This results in feeling excluded and dejected. Glenn D’Cruz’s chapter is in two parts, each demonstrating the value of non-text art forms to comment on Anglo-Indian identity and culture. The first part describes Rhett D’Costa’s 2019 participatory artwork, ‘Masala Mix’ and makes the case for it being an exemplary form of creative practice research skilfully employing autoethnography to address questions of belonging and identity. The second, also drawing on autoethnographic methodologies, provides an account of D’Cruz’s own creative process with reference to a multimedia performance, Vanitas, where he takes a set of objects to think about what life might have been like for his father, an Anglo-Indian who left India with his family just after Independence. The last chapter in this collection, by Jade Furness, centralises two elements: the author’s quest for knowledge and understanding of her family’s history, and through this, a detailed and nuanced reading of two of I. Allan Sealy’s fictional works, The Trotternama (Sealy 1988) and The Everest Hotel (Sealy 1998). The novels provide the author with convincing versions of her own family’s history in India, pre and post Indian Independence. She articulates her gratitude for this, saying that as she had known very little about her family in India and that ‘Sealy’s writing allowed me to access the possible fates and fortunes of my great grandmother and her Anglo-Indian family in India, that have otherwise been unrecoverable’. We are delighted to present this set of chapters on diverse aspects of Anglo-Indian identity approached from a number of disciplinary angles. As the title of the book describes, some chapters focus on the past, others on the present and, geographically, range from India to the diaspora. Showcasing this set of interdisciplinary works, we believe this volume will lead the way in stimulating further interest in this rich arena of study.

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References Anthony, F. (1969). Britain’s Betrayal in India. Mumbai: Allied Publishers. Brah, A. (1996). Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge. Butler, K. (2014). The Secret Vindaloo. Auckland: Bay Road Media. D’Cruz, G. (2006). Midnight’s Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Post-colonial Literature (Vol. one). Bern: Peter Lang. McGready-Buffardi, P. (2004). Hearts Divided in the Raj. Indiana: Author House. Miranda, J. (2013). Requiem for the Living (S. Jose, Trans.): OUP. Mukundan, M. (2002). God’s Mischief (P. Jayakumar, Trans.): Penguin Books. Pyke, J. (2014). The Tea Planter’s Son: An Anglo-Indian Life. Bloomington: Partridge. Rajendran, L. (Writer). (1992). Daivathinte Vikruthikal [God’s Mischief]. In S. M. Arts (Producer). Sealy, I. A. (1988). The Trotternama: A Chronicle. New York: Alfred Knopf. Sealy, I. A. (1998). The Everest Hotel: A Calendar. Anchor Fiction.

PART I

Identities: Historical

CHAPTER 2

The Politics of Representation: Identity, Community and Anglo-Indian Associations in South Asia Nagorao Zapate

Introduction The discovery of a maritime route to South Asia in the last decade of the fifteenth century opened new avenues of wealth for European countries. It began a new era of extensive trade and commerce between Europe and South Asia. After a few generations of trade and political expansion, a number of those involved entered into more or less permanent marriage relationships with local women; offspring of these mixed marriages proved extremely useful for Europe to consolidate its territories in India. The offspring of such mixed marriages were in a special position and tended to form self-conscious communities; the largest, the best organised and the most interesting is the community in India variously known as East Indian, Eurasian or Anglo-Indian (Hedin, 1934; Snell 1944, p. 8; Gaikwad 1967, p.  14). The term ‘Eurasian’, later ‘Anglo-Indian’, refers to persons of mixed European-Indian ancestry who belong to a group recognised by

N. Zapate (*) Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_2

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the Constitution of India as a distinct minority in India. While the Anglo-­ Indian community owes its genesis to the advent of Europeans in India, it was the appearance of the British in India that the real history of the Anglo-Indian begins and a community having a common language, religion, culture, lifestyle, manners and customs emerged (Snell 1944, p. 8). Anglo-Indians were concentrated in those areas where the most British contacts had occurred. In the most significant cities, Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Bangalore, two-thirds of all the Anglo-Indians lived, while most of the additional one-third lived in states such as Kerala and Pondicherry, as well as Shimla, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and other cities of the hills region1 (Cressey 1935). Anglo-Indians are predominantly city dwellers, and their life and problems have an urban setting. This chapter examines the group dynamics of the Anglo-Indian people in terms of the politics of representation, particularly with regard to the genesis, organisational structure, functions and effectiveness of the All India Anglo-Indian Association and other such groups that pursue the socio-economic and cultural interests of Anglo-Indians. It also assesses the role and performance of various Anglo-Indian associations in articulating an Anglo-Indian identity and safeguarding the interests of the community in colonial and post-colonial India. This study is based on historical and archival sources, including census reports, government orders, official reports and newspapers, which provide valuable information about the Anglo-Indian community.

Community Consciousness and Anglo-Indian Associations The necessity of promoting a community consciousness within the framework of a social organisation was first realised in the early nineteenth century. In this regard, prominent Anglo-Indians in Calcutta formed various organisations, namely, the Parental Academic Institution (1823), the East India Club (1825), the Calcutta Apprenticing Society (1827) and the Commercial and Patriotic Association (1828), to represent the interests and concerns of Anglo-Indians to the government, to educate their children and to promote employment in public services2 (Anderson 2011, 1  Hutton, J.H. (1933). Census of India, 1931, vol. I-India, Part II-Imperial Tables. Manager of Publications, Delhi, pp. 562–569. (National Archives of India, New Delhi). 2  Bengal Act III of 1914 (The Doveton Trust Act of 1914), p. 487.

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p. 17; Graham 1934; Gaikwad 1967, p. 25; Castellas 2008, p. 77). The formation of social organisations was a conscious effort among Anglo-­ Indians to organise themselves to achieve solidarity and a more articulate voice in matters concerning their welfare. The Anglo-Indians involved were convinced that they must themselves find a practical solution for the betterment of their economic condition (Gaikwad 1967, pp.  75–76; Castellas 2008, pp. 75–76). Following the Revolt of 1857, the British turned more and more towards the Anglo-Indian community to fill strategic, but intermediary, positions in public services. Anglo-Indians were given preferential treatment in recruitment in the railways, posts and telegraphs, and customs (Gist and Wright 1973, p.  8; Snell 1944, pp.  14–15; Blunt 2015, pp.  9–10). The government opened employment opportunities to the community to secure the Company’s interests as the British were aware that they could count on the community’s support in crucial times. In the post-1857 period, the railway service was the only arena in which government used Anglo-Indians explicitly as an intermediary class. In the posts, telegraphs and customs department, Anglo-Indians had already ceased to be local agents of the British Government (Mizutani 2011, p. 62). Many Anglo-Indians were unemployed at this time, as a result of which their economic condition generally remained backwards. In 1879, Lord Lytton (1876–1880) established the Statutory Civil Service, a native branch of the civil service to increase employment in government services. Anglo-­ Indians benefitted from employment in this service, evidenced by the report of the Public Service Commission which stated that the Statutory Civil Service had a large concentration of Anglo-Indians.3 In the late nineteenth century, there was an increasing demand for government employment by educated Indians, as a result the government introduced a series of reforms. In Section 6 of the Government of India Act 1870 and the resolution dated 11 November 1882, the government stated that the term ‘natives’ were to apply to persons of ‘pure Asiatic origin’.4 This meant that positions in the subordinate grade formerly held

3  Report of the Public Service Commission (1886–1887), Concept Publishing Co., Delhi, Reprint (1977), p. 24. 4  Proceeding Nos. 15/16, October 1904, Legislative Department, pp.  3-4; Proceeding Nos. 118 of 1909, January 1910, Nos. 5/11, Part B, Department of Commerce and Industry, p. 6. (National Archive of India, New Delhi)

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by Anglo-Indians would now be closed to them (Castellas 2008, pp. 84–85). Satoshi Mizutani argues that: subordinate positions were increasingly taken by educated Indians who claimed lower wages and who had political justification for increased recruitment. Consequently, except in certain departments such as the Customs and the Telegraph, the proportion of Anglo-Indian clerks experienced a phenomenal decline. By 1890, the proportion of Anglo-Indian clerkships within the civil service had declined to 18 per cent from almost a total monopoly (99 per cent) in 1840. (Mizutani 2011, p. 63)

Over the years, Anglo-Indians felt increasing pressure from competition with other Indians in areas of employment in public services. As the sense of growing deprivation gradually increased, the community started looking for survival and defensive strategies to protect their economic and social future (Sen 2017, p. 162). To this end, the Anglo-Indian community began to form organisations in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Abel 1988, p. 38; Castellas 2008, p. 85). One of the first organisations, founded by E.W. Chambers in Bengal, was the Eurasian and Anglo-Indian Association (also known as the Calcutta Association) in 1876 (Mizutani 2011, pp.  63–64; The Review, 1976, p. 70). The main objective of the Association was to alleviate the community’s problems, particularly in employment and education. The Association made several representations to the colonial government drawing its attention to the problems faced by the Anglo-Indian community (Anthony 1969, p. 408), but was not successful in its endeavours at least in part because “dissension within the community prevented many Anglo-Indians from joining the association” (Abel 1988, p.  41). Nevertheless, during those inconsistent times, the Association and its leaders guided the Anglo-Indian community in Calcutta and other parts of Bengal. In Madras, the Anglo-­ Indian and Domiciled European Association of Southern India was formed by D.S.  White in 1879 (Gist and Wright 1973, pp.  97–98). White was aware of the need for increased unity among Anglo-Indians to redress their socio-economic problems (Packlanathaj 1997, p. 70). In 1898, Dr. J.R.  Wallace founded the Imperial Anglo-Indian Association which was, after the death of its founder, revived as the Anglo-­ Indian Empire League (Gaikwad 1967, p.  35; Gist and Wright 1973, p.  98; Sen 2017, p.  161). As president of the Anglo-Indian Empire League, John Harold Abbott (1863–1945) became the dominant leader

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of the Anglo-Indian community and played a significant role in bringing it together into a federation with other Anglo-Indian organisations to recruit soldiers for World War I (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p.  139). The loose federation of the League with several regional Anglo-Indian associations had initially come into being to organise such wartime recruitment. Despite their cooperation in 1916, the Federal Council of four Anglo-­ Indian Associations and the General Council of the League “each addressed the Government of India directly independent of other” (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p.  144). Charlton-Stevens says that Abbott’s more comprehensive achievement had been to bring about a broader basis for claims to leadership of an all-India community (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p. 144). At the Anglo-Indian Empire League’s 1918–19 Annual Conference at Allahabad, a resolution was passed to change the name of the Empire League to the ‘Anglo-Indian Association’, at which point there was a significant argument about why ‘Domiciled European’ had been left out of the organisation’s new name, and another resolution was also passed renaming it ‘the Anglo-Indian & Domiciled European Association’ (Charlton-Stevens 2018, pp.  134–172). A prominent leader of Anglo-­ Indians, Henry Gidney (1873–1942), became its president (Gist and Wright 1973, p. 98; Sen 2017, p. 161). This Association is considered the parent organisation of the present All India Anglo-Indian Association, the most dominant and influential Anglo-Indian organisation in India. The Memorandum of the Association says: “the Association has been formed to watch over and protect the interests and promote the welfare of Anglo-­ Indians in India and others associated with them by community of sympathies and interests. The objects of the Association are charitable, educational and cultural” (Gaikwad 1967, pp. 35–36). The many provincial branches of the All India Association had more localised concerns and spent a lot of time organising social and cultural functions. Since its inception in 1879, the Anglo-Indian Association of Southern India remained as a separate body and refused to amalgamate with the ‘All India’ organisation (Gist and Wright 1973, p.  98). In an interview, E.H.M. Bower explained the differences that arose between the Southern India Association and the All India Association. When the All India Association was founded in Calcutta, the Southern India Association was asked to become a provincial branch. The Southern India Association declined to be part of the All India Association because “the Anglo-India Association constitution does not make for provincial unity as each district

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branch sends its correspondence and remittances direct to the All India body.”5 The Southern India Association prioritised provincial unity and did not desire to strengthen the All-India headquarters at the expense of that unity.6 Instead of amalgamation, the Southern Association wanted a federation of these two associations, but the All-India Anglo-Indian Association rejected this proposal (Gaikwad 1967, p. 37). Despite numerous attempts made by the All India Association to persuade the Madras Association to amalgamate, it remained obdurate and separate.7 It is willing to federate and retain its hitherto autonomous status but draws the line at any other compromise. In the persistence of this schism, the community added another sorry link to the spectre of Anglo-Indian disunity (Snell 1944, pp. 28–29).

Dilemma of Identity As the freedom movement’s pace increased against British rule, and with constantly changing socio-political and economic conditions, Anglo-­ Indians became concerned about their positions and future in India (Hawes 1996; Caplan 2001). In 1923, the Anglo-Indian Association of Bengal called a meeting at Calcutta to discuss whether “Anglo-Indians [should] retain their distinctive identity or should … identify themselves with Indians as far as civil activities are concerned or … [seek to] Indianise?”8 Henry Gidney, in this meeting, said that he did not doubt that Anglo-Indians were very “much befogged” as to what the position was likely to be for the Anglo-Indian community and even about what they would call themselves. Again, he said “no doubt, everyone presents there called himself an Anglo-Indian. But had they any right to call themselves such?”9 He added that some Anglo-Indian employees of the East Indian Railway brought to his notice that they were described as East Indians in the records of the railway, and it was only by common usage that they were called Anglo-Indians.10 Gidney said that Anglo-Indians must determine who they were. They were the sons of the soil, neither  The Times of India, 13 May, 1937, p. 4.  Ibid. 7  The Annual Report of the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Association of Southern India, 1930, p. 6. 8  The Times of India, 15 May, 1923, p. 11. 9  Ibid. 10  Ibid. 5 6

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European nor Indian, but ipso facto citizens of the country. He maintained that Anglo-Indians should not have the slightest hesitation in calling themselves citizens of India. It was time that the community, while maintaining its distinctive communal existence, should join hands with other Indians in the attainment of self-government for India within the British Empire by constitutional methods.11 The meeting of the Anglo-Indian community of Calcutta declared that: the Domiciled community whilst retaining, in its entirety, their communal identity, look upon themselves as one of the permanent and distinct communities in India; and as much are citizens of India in every respect. We are desirous of living in peace, harmony and co-operation with the other communities in India and are ready in the future, as in the past, to help India to attain local self-government within the British Empire on constitutional lines.12

In 1931, the position of Anglo-Indians under the new Constitution was discussed at length by Henry Gidney, and he urged Anglo-Indians thus: … the present day conflict between an ever changing [We]st and a never changing [Ea]st must find the Anglo-Indian ranging himself more and more alongside the Indian in a constitutional advance to Dominion status. This, I submit, is the first essential for the future of the Anglo-Indian, otherwise, India offers no place for the community, but by this I do not mean that he must sacrifice his communal identity and distinctiveness or that loyalty to the new India implies disloyalty to Britain. On the contrary, I could not conceive of a prosperous and well organized and administered India separated from England, for each is equally in need of the other’s loyalty and co-operation, without which neither nation will prosper or advance.13

It was in the 1930s under the leadership of Henry Gidney that Anglo-­ Indians began to turn to Indians for recognition of their special status. Dual loyalties with priority for England, however, continued. Cursing the British for letting them down (see, e.g., the title of two important books: Herbert Stark’s Hostages to India or the Life-Story of the Anglo-Indian (1926) and Frank Anthony’s Britain’s Betrayal in India: the Story of the  Ibid.  Ibid. 13  The Times of India, 21 March, 1931, p. 12. 11 12

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Anglo-Indian Community (1969), which themselves tell the stories), Herbert Stark made an impassioned appeal to the English and the Indians: “If England is the land of our fathers, India is the land of mothers. If to us England is a hallowed memory, India is a living verity. If England is the land of our pilgrimage, India is the land of our homes. If England is dear as a land of inspiring traditions, India is loved for all that she means to us in our daily life.”14 Again, Henry Gidney speaking in Bangalore put the case to his Anglo-Indian fraternity as harshly as he could: Deny the fact that you are sons and citizens of India, disclaim it, conceal it in your efforts to ape what you are not, and you will soon be the ‘not wanted’ at all. The opportunity is yours today to more closely associate yourselves, from early school life, with the rest of India, to realise that you, with all other communities, have a right to live in this, your country, and that you are first and last sons of India … But if there is one thing which you must completely eradicate from yourselves it is the retention of the ‘superiority’ and ‘inferiority’ complexes; and you should bring about their replacement with a complex of equality.15

The Anglo-Indian community seemed to be caught between a desire to join in European attitudes of superiority and prejudice towards Indians and a feeling of rejection by many Indians who considered them ‘other’ because of their Western-oriented culture. Henry Gidney, throughout his political career, played a significant role in seeking: (a) eradication of the community’s European attitude of superiority and prejudice against other Indians, and (b) recognition of the Anglo-Indian community’s asserted status of belonging on the political map of India. In this particular period, several books regarding the history and problems of the community were written and published by Anglo-Indian authors such as Herbert A. Stark’s Hostages to India (1926), Kenneth. E. Wallace’s the Eurasian Problem: Constructively Approached (1930), Cedric Dover’s Cimmerii? or Eurasians and their Future (1929) and Half-­ Caste (1937), C. N. Weston’s Anglo-Indian Revolutionaries of Methodist Episcopal Church (1938), and J.A.H. Bower’s Ambition Mocked our Useful Toil (1939), and attempts were also made to foster the conviction in the minds of people of the community that they ought to regard themselves as belonging to India and to claim India as their motherland (Maher 1945,  The Times of India, 2 November, 1969, p. 17.  Ibid.

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p.  50). Alison Blunt argues, “the mixed descent of Anglo-Indians was both manifested and erased by their dual identification with Britain as fatherland and India as Motherland” (Blunt 2015, p.  24). Alison Blunt claims that Gidney attempted to shift Anglo-Indian orientation to the dualistic formula of India as motherland alongside Britain as fatherland because neither the Anglo-Indian community nor Gidney himself was ready to renounce an ongoing affiliation to Britain. This was even whilst Gidney sought to increase their simultaneous identification with India (Blunt 2015, pp.  42–43). Charlton-Stevens argues that Gidney did not want to conceive of a binary choice between identification with Britain and India, rather he wanted to assert both with this formula. He could do so because he imagined a future for India as always being aligned with Britain even under a future Dominion Status tied to the British Crown and within the Empire/Commonwealth. He did not want to consider the possibility of an Indian Republic which might reject membership in the Empire/Commonwealth (Charlton-Stevens 2018). Mr. B.G. Kher, Chief Minister of Bombay Province at the time, said in 1938, at the annual general meeting of the Bombay branch of the All India Association: I would ask your community not to be always casting longing glances at the West, but to throw yourself heart and soul into the life and movement around you. This is your motherland. Do not look upon yourselves as aliens but share the difficulties and the struggle for freedom in which the rest of us are engaged … (Snell 1944, p. 23).

In September 1943, the Anglo-Indian Study Circle and Book Club were organised in Calcutta with the “purpose, as set down then and maintained since … to use our booklets to foster an atmosphere of Anglo-­Indian consciousness in the community and cultivate a knowledge of the AngloIndian past, present and future” (Maher 1945, p. 50). Yet, the Anglo-Indian Association defined the position of the community in its relations with other elements of Indian national life. At a Conference of Anglo-Indian leaders held in New Delhi on 20 March 1942, the following resolution was adopted vis a vis the community, The community fully recognizes that, as one of the minorities of India, its progress and prosperity are indissolubly linked up with the progress and prosperity of the country and therefore associates and identifies itself fully and unequivocally with those elements of Indian national life which aim at

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the constitutional development of India to the status of complete equality with the Dominions of the British Empire … In view of its origin, religion and culture this conference determines that the Anglo-Indian community shall, however, retain its communal identity equally with other groups and communities who form the elements of Indian national life (Snell 1944, pp. 22–23).

Thus, the right to preserve a ‘communal identity’ was being used to assert an ongoing right to maintain the group’s distinctively Western-­oriented and ‘European’ culture. Frank Anthony (1908–1993), who succeeded Henry Gidney in 1942 as the leader of the All India Anglo-Indian Association, looked for opportunities to resolve this dilemma of identity in the crucial years of the transfer of power. He says, we are Anglo-Indians by community. Of that fact we have every reason to be proud. We have forged a history, in many ways notable, of which any much larger community anywhere in the world could be justifiably proud. Let us cling and cling, tenaciously, to all that we hold dear, our language, our way of life and our distinctive culture. But let us always remember that we are Indians. The community is Indian. It has always been Indian. Above all, it has an inalienable Indian birthright. The more we love and are loyal to India, the more will India love and be loyal to us.16

Between 1930 and 1947, Anglo-Indians became increasingly concerned about their identity and future in Indian society. Most Anglo-Indians felt that their ties were closer to Great Britain than to India and that they would have a better future in England; others, including the leadership of the Association, attempted to make alliances with leaders of the Indian nationalist movement (Gist and Wright 1973, p.  20). Charlton-Stevens says, “Anthony understood that the future of Anglo-Indians within India would depend upon relations with the Indian National Congress Party. Gidney has spoken of India as motherland and Britain as fatherland; Anthony would move towards a solitary identification with India based upon nested identities expressed in his communal nationalist formula: Anglo-Indian by community, Indian by Nationality” (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p.  229). Anthony’s approach towards India and his “attempt at burying the term Domiciled European, met even more contestation and bitter opposition within the community than Gidney’s more cautious  The Times of India, 2 November, 1969, p. 17.

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moves to foster identification with India” (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p. 229). After Independence in 1947, the Anglo-Indian community was recognised as a distinct minority community of India in the new Constitution and certain safeguards were guaranteed to it. The Constitution of India, under Article 366 (2), for example, states that, an Anglo-Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only.17

These characteristics of the term Anglo-Indian were derived from the Government of India Act of 1935 and the electoral definitions of constituencies for Provincial Council under the earlier Act of 1919 (Blunt 2015, p. 3). More than that, the Constitution, in other sections, had recognised the community’s right for political representation, special guarantees in the area of education and employment ‘quotas’ in the department of railway, customs, postal and telegraph for 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution.18 Anglo-Indians were encouraged by the thought that they had been given such respect which was of no negligible importance in the Constitution of free India.19 They took particular pride in being accorded political guarantees, making the community one of only six politically recognised minorities of India (Anthony 1969, p. I). Anglo-­ Indians had achieved a high point of their minority community rights in the Act of 1935 as a result of Gidney’s lobbying efforts in London and a crucial House of Lords amendment to that act, which created rights which were ultimately declared to be justifiable. The significant achievement of minority community rights for most communal groups in India came with the Communal Award of 1932 and its partial embodiment in the 1935 Act. Anglo-Indians were awarded separate electorates in some provincial seats under the Act of 1935. However, in other provincial seats as well as the Central Legislative Assembly, they merely had a nominated seat. In independent India all Anglo-Indian seats, both in the state assembly and 17  The Constitution of India, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, 2007, p. 235. 18  The Constitution of India, op. cit, p. 204. 19  The Times of India, 10 October, 1949, p. 7.

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in the Lok Sabha (House of the People), became nominated seats. The political representations in Parliament and the State Assemblies for Anglo-­ Indians was another high point of their community rights. The reservations in employment for Anglo-Indians, another significant achievement for Anglo-Indians, was also created in the 1935 Act (Charlton-Stevens 2018, pp.  212–213). This represented another success in the ongoing struggle of Anglo-Indian associations for identity construction and recognition, and the betterment of the community in India. Anthony himself did not believe that he would succeed in preserving the already existing rights achieved by Gidney’s efforts. Anthony was surprised by the degree of his own success, although he threatened to resign from the sub-committee on minorities if these rights were removed. He managed to preserve them. In the case of reservations only on a temporary—scheduled to be periodically reduced until removed entirely—basis, and more surprising was the right of Indian governments to nominate Anglo-Indian MPs to the Lok Sabha (House of the People)20 and MLAs to the State Legislative Assemblies.21 It was crucial that Anthony succeeded in maintaining the partial preservation of colonial-era minority group rights for Anglo-Indians, but he exceeded this by creating unprecedented new rights (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p. 213). On 9 October 1949 in Calcutta, Frank Anthony said he was aware of the anxiety that remained in the minds of many members of his community. Much of this anxiety was due to ignorance of the generous guarantees given to the community and also of the fundamental rights of the various communities to preserve their culture. Anglo-Indians at that time were receiving opportunities which they could not possibly get in any other country.22 Frank Anthony looked for opportunities to resolve this sense of insecurity by adjusting the way they saw themselves. Anthony repeated his call for his community to understand themselves as Indians by nationality and Anglo-Indians by the community (James 2003, pp. 50–60). Many Anglo-Indians, however, continued to insist, as reported by

 Article 331 of the Constitution of India.  Article 333 and 334 (b) of the Constitution of India and Substituted by the Constitution (Seventy-ninth Amendment) Act, 1999, Sec. 2.; In January 2020, the Constitution (126th Amendment) Bill passed in the Parliament did not renew the provision for the nomination of Anglo-Indians to Lok Sabha and some state Assemblies. 22  The Times of India, 10 October, 1949, p. 7. 20 21

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journalist Khushwant Singh, “Britishers we are. Britishers [we] will always remain.”23 In the words of Frank Anthony, who led the Anglo-Indian community in India through his roles as president from 1942 until his death in 1993, the community became increasingly endogamous, resulting in “distinctive racial-cum-linguistic-cum-cultural” characteristics that included “certain common customs, manners and cultural affinities, with the supreme bond of English as their Mother-tongue” (Anthony 1969, p. 8; Blunt 2015, p. 9). As reported in The Times of India, the departure of the British left the community in a state of confusion. The new reality roused a feeling of insecurity springing from economic helplessness.24 A feeling of suspicion and mutual distrust had always existed between Anglo-Indians and other Indian communities. Anxiety about its future gripped the community who had formally enjoyed British patronage and which had inculcated in the community a sense of identification with British power. The community felt that this sense of identification and emotional attitude was out of place in the newly independent India. During the transfer of power, Anglo-­ Indians were left to decide their own fate and had to grapple with their lack of identification with the new government and changed mood of the Indian people. This forced the community to reassess its status in India,25 with the vast majority of Anglo-Indians fearing that they would be persona non grata in India. This led to the migration of thousands of Anglo-­ Indians to other Commonwealth countries such as Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, despite the fact that the Indian Constitution acknowledged them as a distinct minority community. Such large-scale migration considerably reduced their population in India from 300,152 in 1941 to 111,687 in 1951 (Castellas 2008, pp. 223–224). However, those who remained received only minimum support from the government formed after Independence. Although the Indian state had constitutionally granted to Anglo-Indians supportive ‘safeguards,’ they were not always implemented on the ground. Anglo-Indians faced considerable resistance from many Indian politicians of other communities in India and were subject to ongoing contestation, including in the courts and even from the Indian Supreme Court (Charlton-Stevens 2018, pp. 248, 275). Most of Frank Anthony’s post-Independence career was spent seeking to  The Times of India, 2 November, 1969, p. 17.  The Times of India, 27 March, 1977, p. 8. 25  The Times of India, 27 March, 1977, p. 8. 23 24

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uphold those constitutional ‘safeguards’ and ‘rights,’ such as the right to English language education for Anglo-Indians (and for other communities who sent their children to Anglo-Indian schools and thereby made those institutions financially viable) (Charlton-Stevens 2018, pp. 227–230). State governments, in particular, sought to reverse or eliminate many measures helpful to Anglo-Indians such as funding for Anglo-Indian education scheduled to be discontinued after 10 years ending in 1960,26 resulting in further migration of Anglo-Indians mostly to countries such as Australia and Canada. The second migration of Anglo-Indian families further depleted the numbers (Castellas 2008, pp. 223–224). According to the All India Anglo-Indian Association, by 1977, nearly 100,000 Anglo-Indians lived in India and another 75,000 people of mixed racial ancestry, Portuguese, Dutch and French descendants, commonly known as Feringhees, lived in south Indian states.27 The Union of the Anglo-Indian Associations, Kerala, represented a community of mixed racial ancestry and argue that the so called Feringhees be recognised as members of the Anglo-Indian community. The All India Anglo-Indian Association, however, does not recognise them as Anglo-Indians because they speak in vernacular languages and dialects and not English, the official language of the Anglo-Indians according to the AIAIA, but not detailed in the Constitution28 (Gist and Wright 1973, p.  98). Frank Anthony stated that, … without our schools and without our language, English, we cannot be an Anglo-Indian community. We may be like Feringees of Kerala, who claim to be originally of Portuguese descent but who have merged with the lowest stratum of the Indian Christian community, with their mother tongue as Malayalam (The Review, 1966, p. 39; Gist and Wright 1973, p. 98).

The single qualification of language excludes them from being part of the community. This dispute has led to a long and futile controversy over whether or not to recognise and include some groups in the south who assert their membership of the community. Economic and industrial benefits have generally accrued more to Anglo-Indians in north India than in south India.29 Even the British did  The Constitution of India, op. cit., pp. 204-205.  The Times of India, 27 March, 1977, p. 8. 28  The Times of India, 27 March, 1977, p. 8. 29  The Times of India, 27 March, 1977, p. 8. 26 27

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not provide the Anglo-Indians in the south with as many opportunities for advancement because of their strong antipathy towards the descendants of the Portuguese, Dutch and the French.30 Some of their community leaders in south India have, for several years, been urging the central and state governments to declare the community to be backward because of their poor economic condition, but the move is opposed by the All India Anglo-­ Indian Association (Caplan 2001). Despite great social and economic pressures, Anglo-Indians have always tried to maintain their individuality as a community along with a certain standard of living. However, this holds good primarily for the community living in north India.31 Being designated as a ‘backward community’ implies a social stigma which would be likely to affect the morale of all Anglo-Indians.32 Anglo-Indians in the south were, more or less, isolated from the national mainstream because they comprised diverse groups with different languages and socio-­ economic situations.33 Also, those in the south who were less Anglophone, divided on linguistic and class lines and had greater proficiency in regional languages, had better communication with neighbouring Indian communities than the Anglo-Indians of north India. There were some Anglo-­ Indians in the south, in Bangalore and Madras, for example, who were culturally, economically, linguistically and otherwise very similar to Anglo-­ Indians in north India. Many of those who claimed membership of the Anglo-Indian community were rejected in the colonial era on the basis of being linguistically and culturally rather different, and generally suffering from lower levels of education, inferior employment or employment prospects, and a lower socio-economic status (Caplan 2001). The Anglo-Indians, once a vibrant community with a distinct identity, have had a prominent presence in Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai’s society since the days of the East India Company. Yet, they are, arguably, a dwindling community today, with perhaps fewer than 100,000 remaining in India; Kolkata and Mumbai being home to barely 30000 and 500 Anglo-­ Indians, respectively.34 Consequently, the group has suffered from intertwined identity and recognition challenges, insecurity about where they  Ibid.  The Times of India, 27 March, 1977, p. 8. 32  Ibid. 33  Ibid. 34  According to Anglo-Indian MLA Michael Shane Calvert, “The city’s [Kolkata] AngloIndian population ranges between 25,000 and 30,000.” The Times of India, 02 August 2016, p. 17; The Times of India, 3 August, 2002, p. 6. 30 31

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belong and the desire to emigrate.35 Edmund Myall, the president of Bombay branch of the Association, pointed out that “ours is a dwindling population.”36 Tina Bopiah,37 who has painted a series on the lifestyle of the community, said that she “grew up with a feeling of being neither here or there.”38 According to Sheila Pais James the Anglo-Indians were Indian by birth, but their cultural orientation towards Britain has purportedly often made their status confusing to themselves and others (James 2003, pp.  50–60). Edmund Myall attributes such cultural uncertainties to the vacuum left behind by the British, “the community was going through an adjustment period after the British left India.”39 The community is desperately trying to keep alive its traditions while simultaneously assimilating into the lifestyle of the Indian mainstream. In this regard, Wright notes that the Anglo-Indian community, throughout its history, made every effort to define themselves as a distinctive community and maintained its unique social, cultural and linguistic identities and a very specific lifestyles and heritage. In the mid-twentieth century, when the members of the community began to drop because of migration and “a restrictive self-­ definition of group membership,” a point was reached where the social, cultural and socio-psychological identities could not be so easily maintained. However, internationally, members of the community meet in various countries, celebrating their identity as Anglo-Indian (Wright 1997, pp. 43–58; James 2003, pp. 54–55).

Conclusion The above discussion reveals that one of the major problems the Anglo-­ Indian community has faced throughout history concerns their identity and recognition, both in terms of community and individually. The Anglo-­ Indian community along with its associations, despite ideological differences, have waged a prolonged struggle for identity and recognition. It was not easy for Anglo-Indians to construct their own identity because Europeans tended to consider them as Indians with some European blood,  The Times of India, 02 August 2016, p. 21.  The Times of India, 18 September, 1998, p. 5. 37  Tina Bopiah is a famous painter. She is an Anglo-Indian from Kolkata and now lives in Mumbai. Many of her paintings build on autobiographical themes, but she finds inspiration in pop culture, news and biblical tales. 38  The Times of India, 18 September, 1998, p. 5. 39  The Times of India, 18 September, 1998, p. 5. 35 36

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and Indians as Europeans with some Indian blood. Anglo-Indians were associated with English cultural patterns, but they never reached a plateau of equality in the English socio-cultural sphere. At the same time, they were never an integral part of the socio-cultural composition of indigenous India and indigenous populations never considered Anglo-Indians to be an integral part of India. The Anglo-Indian community and its associations looked for opportunities to resolve this identity dilemma in the mid-­ twentieth century. But as the Indian national movement gained momentum against the colonial rule, Anglo-Indians became increasingly concerned about their social positions, identity and future in Indian society. In this constantly changing social and political scenario, the Anglo-Indian community seemed caught between the European attitudes of superiority and prejudices against Indians. The Anglo-Indian associations and its leaders Henry Gidney and Frank Anthony played a significant role in seeking eradication of this attitude and recognition of the Anglo-Indian community’s asserted status of belonging on the political map of India. Gidney claimed India as motherland and Anthony moved towards a solitary identification with India and asserted they were Anglo-Indian by community, Indian by nationality. In post-independent India, however, a feeling of insecurity, suspicion and mutual distrust between Anglo-Indians and other Indian communities created a new fault line. Anxiety about their future and lack of identification with the new government led to the migration of thousands of Anglo-Indians to other countries, even though the Indian Constitution acknowledged them as a distinct minority community and protected their rights. A large number of Anglo-Indians felt materially, culturally and/or physically insecure in independent India and that India was not their home because of a threatening socio-political climate and cultural alienation which led to continued migration. Therefore, Anglo-­ Indians, once a vibrant community with a distinct identity, who have had a prominent presence in the Indian sub-continent, has become a dwindling community today. Their struggle for collective survival, as documented here, has certain unique features and uncommon antecedents, which necessitate further critical study.

References Abel, E. (1988). The Anglo-Indian Community: Survival in India. Delhi: Chanakya Publications. Anderson, Valerie E. R. (2011). The Eurasia Problem in Nineteenth Century India. Unpublished PhD Thesis, SOAS, London.

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Anthony, F. (1969). Britain’s Betrayal in India: The Story of the Anglo-Indian Community. Bombay: Allied Publishers. Bengal Act III of 1914 (The Doveton Trust Act of 1914), 487. Blunt, A. (2015). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Bower, J.  A. H. (1939). Ambition Mocked Our Useful Toil: Autobiographical Sketches and Musings on Anglo-Indian Problems. Madras: J.A.H. Bower. Caplan, L. (2001). Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Post-Colonial World. Oxford: Berg. Castellas, Ivorine. (2008). The Anglo-Indians: Study of a Marginal Community in Indian Democracy. Unpublished Thesis, Punjab University, Chandigarh. Census of India, 1931, vol. I, Part II, 562–569. Charlton-Stevens, U.  E. (2018). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism. London: Routledge. Cressey, P. F. (1935). The Anglo-Indians: A Disorganized Marginal Group. Social Forces, 14(2), 263–268. Dover, C. (1929). Chimmerii? Or, Eurasians and Their Future. Calcutta: Modern Art Press. Dover, C. (1937). Half-Caste. London: M. Secker and Warburg. Gaikwad, V.  R. (1967). The Anglo-Indian: A Study in the Problems of Processes Involved in Emotional and Cultural Integration. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Gist, N. P., & Wright, R. D. (1973). Marginality and Identity: Anglo-Indian as a Racially Mixed Minority in India. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Graham, J. A. (1934). The Education of the Anglo-Indian Child. Journal of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 83(4279), 22–46. Hawes, C. (1996). Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833. Richmond: Curzon Press. Hedin, E.  L. (1934). The Anglo-Indian Community. American Journal of Sociology, 40(2), 165–179. Hutton, J. H. (1933). Census of India, 1931, vol. I-India, Part II-Imperial Tables. Delhi: Manager of Publications. James, S.  P. (2003). The Anglo-Indians: Aspirations for Whiteness and the Dilemma of Identity. Counterpoints, 3(1), 50–60. Maher, R.  J. (1945). What Is in the News. Selection from the Clarion Series, 1(25), 50. Mizutani, S. (2011). The Meaning of White: Race, Class, and Domiciled Community in British India, 1858-1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mr. Frank Anthony’s Presidential Address. The Review, 57, (1966), 39. Packlanathaj, R. Soundararaj. (1997). The Anglo-Indian Community in the Madras Presidency: 1700-1950. Unpublished Thesis, Manonmanlam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli.

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Report of the Public Service Commission (1886-1887). Concept Publishing Co., Delhi, Reprint (1977). Sen, S. (2017). Anglo-Indian Women in Transition: Pride, Prejudice and Predicament. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Snell, O. (1944). Anglo-Indians and Their Future. Bombay: Thacker & Co.. Stark, H. A. (1926). Hostages to India or the Life-Story of the Anglo-Indian Race. Calcutta: The Calcutta Fine Art Cottage. The Annual Report of the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Association of Southern India, 1930. The Constitution of India, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, 2007. Wallace, K. E. (1930). The Eurasian Problem: Constructively Approached. Calcutta: Thacker Spink & Co.. Weston, C.  N. (1938). Anglo-Indian Revolutionaries of Methodist Episcopal Church. Bangalore: The Scripture Literature Press. Wright, R.  D. (1997). The Shattering of Cultural Identity: The Anglo-Indian Community in Rural India. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 2(1), 43–58.

CHAPTER 3

Which Eurasians May Speak? Elite Politics, the Lower Classes and Contested Eurasian Identity Brent Howitt Otto

In the April 1827 issue of the Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature, a metropolitan British publication about African and Indian colonial economics, war stories and parliamentary politics circulated in the colonies, we find a curious tract entitled ‘The Eurasian Anthem’. The ‘Anthem’ portrays Britain’s colonial project in India as a heaven-ordained duty and a civilizing mission, and mixed-race Eurasians in possession of an identity preeminently suited to fulfill it. Rarely is a forceful claim made unless it is contested, and the case of ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ is no exception. This poem bears witness in its lines to some of the suffering, anxieties and political aspirations of Eurasians in the 1820s, in relation to the larger political debates of the decades straddling the turn of the nineteenth century, over the morality and purpose of empire, the relationship between Parliament and the East India Company (EIC) in governing India, and

B. H. Otto (*) University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_3

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whether British law ought to operate on the same principles in the colonies as in the metropole. The following is reproduced exactly as it appeared in the original publication, the Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature, v. 13, April 1827, p. 17. --------

The Eurasian Anthem To the Editors of the Oriental Herald. Sir, --In requesting the insertion of the enclosed lines, which are dedicated to the British Nation, I beg to inform you that they are the production of a Eurasian, * a young man, who has been perfectly blind since he was ten years of age. A SUBSCRIBER. Madras, 10 October 1826. To the British Nation, but to the Imperial Parliament in particular, the following lines are humbly dedicated by their depressed Descendants in the East Indies. When Britain, from the azure sea First rose, the Land of Liberty, This was her great commission: ‘Go forth to India’s distant strand. Subdue and civilize the land. And better her condition. And when thou art established there, Grant her thy laws, dispense them fair, And bless the sable nation; To all and each extend thy grace. But chiefly to an unborn race, That shall be called Eurasian. Allied to both the black and white, They shall both interests unite, And form the central props Of all thy future ample sway O’er this bright region of the day, This land of golden crops. With haughty hearts, and souls of fire, To equal rights they shall aspire. And equal honours too; Nor should’st thou disallow their claim,

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For, recollecting whence they came, They shall demand their due!’ Such was the great commission given To Britain, by the voice of heaven: Bear witness, church and state! Let her fulfil the high decree, Writ in the book of destiny. Th’unerring page of fate. Nor let her more affect to scorn. But play us fair in India born, Nor the great work delay; For since we are her flesh and bone, Now let her make us all her own, And join us in her sway. Thus let her prove that she is just, A faithful guardian to her trust, While every true Eurasian, Obliged by more than filial ties, The bulwark of her power shall raise Against each hostile nation. All hail to Britain and her laws! Heaven prosper India and her cause. All hail to both the nations! As Britain, so let India be, A land of equal liberty, To Britons and Eurasians * This is one of the most popular terms by which the mixed race, descending from European and Asiatic parents, are distinguished.

---The message of the ‘Anthem’ is loud and clear, but the identity of the messenger is not. Whose voice do we hear? Whose views are these? Who penned this poem? On what authority are these sentiments asserted as the voice of Britain’s ‘depressed Descendants in the East Indies’? Is the author the unnamed blind Eurasian young man (an orphan perhaps?) the Subscriber claims him to be?—an archetypical subaltern who succeeds despite the odds, due to a sharp wit, talent and tenacity? Or is the blind Eurasian a fictitious identity, crafted by an elite individual (the ‘Subscriber’, perhaps?) or group of wealthy and well-educated Eurasians, intending to cast Eurasians in a positive light on a public stage to show they deserve

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equality with Britons? What may this open question of authorship, voice and ­position reveal about power relations within the Eurasian community? At that point in time, was it even a community at all? If so, who is permitted to speak for them? Answering any of these questions and appreciating the complexity this ‘Anthem’ reveals about Eurasians in the British Empire first requires historical contextualization, which will be pursued at length in the first section of this chapter. For the moment suffice it to say that Eurasians had been restricted by the East India Company’s legal and employment policies for over a generation. This was the result of a pan-colonial fear of mestizos, simmering in the European corridors of power for several decades. As a consequence, Eurasians in the 1820s began a period of intense organizing—especially in Calcutta but also Madras and Bombay—to demand redress from Parliament of their grievances against the Company. These efforts resulted in several deputations to petition Parliament: 1827 (Madras), 1829 (Calcutta) and 1830 (Bombay) (Charlton-Stevens 2018, pp. 48–55; Hawes 1996, ch. 8). The historical backdrop may have worked to produce sympathetic allies for their cause. There was already a long-­ established tension between Company and Crown. The East India Company had faced stinging condemnation for the rapacious practices of the ‘nabobs’ of the late eighteenth century, resulting in increased parliamentary oversight, and Edmund Burke’s flamboyantly prosecuted corruption trial of the former governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings.1 In these tumultuous political waters Eurasians sought to shore up their position socially and politically by casting themselves as victims of the Company’s injustice in contrast to Britain’s lofty moral ideals. ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ is a unique, distilled reflection of the discourse of Eurasians (at least an elite subset) about the tenuous position in which they found themselves in the 1820s, and how they carefully asserted an identity in relation to the colonial state and to British values, explaining their hybridity as an asset and not a curse. Facing some measure of persecution, Eurasians were forged into what Christopher Hawes (1996) has called ‘a reluctant community’. By borrowing Hawes’ phrase, it is not my purpose to suggest that Eurasians had no solidarity prior to the 1820s. Rather their political identity as a distinct 1  For an account of the impact of the trial on the British imperial project in India, see Nicholas Dirks, (2006) The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain, Harvard University Press/Belknap.

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‘community’ was forged at this time, which had an important impact on how Eurasians would be viewed subsequently by state authorities and also historians: namely, presuming solidarity among the Eurasian ‘community’ belies the diversity among Eurasians by class, education and interests. This is what makes ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ such an interesting piece, for beneath its bold claim to represent an identity for all Eurasians it leaves in plain view evidence that Eurasians are far from monolithic, and numerous questions as to which Eurasians speak, are spoken for, or are silenced. Yet, a consolidated identity for all Eurasians is what was needed to redress their grievances because only clear identity claims could be the basis for resolving their ambivalence with respect to colonial law and policy. This chapter argues that the ‘Anthem’ is a prescient characterization not only of what would be a longstanding discursive project of Eurasian self-representation to the state but also equally enduring contestation of voice and power among Eurasians, which only became more openly debated deeper into the nineteenth century and extending up to India’s Independence in 1947. The first section will explore the ‘Anthem’ through three key contexts: first, the ‘text around the text’, the way the poem’s content and authorship is presented by the one(s) who submitted it; second, ‘the Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature’, in which the ‘Anthem’ was published and the significant position of its founder and editor in relation to the East India Company and Parliament; and third, ‘Madras’, the colonial Presidency from which it was submitted and the politics of Eurasians there at that historical moment. Having developed these three contexts, the second section will examine the text of the ‘Anthem’ itself. First, I will consider the significance of its form as poetic verse and an ‘anthem’ in 1820s colonial India. Then, through a close reading of the ‘Anthem’s’ rhetoric and sentiments, I will elaborate on how its author(s) strategically position Eurasian identity politically and socially. The third section will return to the initial question of who speaks in and through the ‘Anthem’, the precise answer to which turns out to be less important than the obscure shadows that the question reveals, which foretells a future of contested voice among Eurasians within the strictures of colonial politics. The last section will trace this history of open contestation of who may speak for Eurasians, with examples from the 1870s through the 1940s, demonstrating that their public-facing identity was a neuralgic problem that originated in the way Eurasians became a political community in the 1820s, which is illuminated by ‘The Eurasian Anthem’.

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Contexts The Text Around the Text The poem is not unconventional, with eight stanzas of six lines each, in an AABCCB rhyming structure. But the text around it shows us that it is more than a conventional poem. The ‘Subscriber’, or the editors, if not the author himself, calls it as ‘The Eurasian Anthem’. The term ‘anthem’ elevates this text beyond the author’s self-expression to claim a universality that presumes to speak for a group and name its deepest affections, aspirations and values. This high claim to universality is reinforced by the namelessness of both the author and the subscriber, which focuses attention instead upon the group (‘Eurasians’). ‘A Subscriber’ notes that, ‘these lines are dedicated to the British Nation’. So before reading it, one is already directed to see it as the anthem of Eurasian people expressing praise, loyalty, fealty and duty to Britain. In the early nineteenth century within Anglican circles ‘anthem’ often denoted hymns. This is consonant with the strongly religious underpinnings of ‘The Eurasian Anthem’s’ sentiments to be discussed at length in the second section. Although the author is unnamed, his identity was clearly important enough that the ‘Subscriber’ found it necessary to describe him: ‘…an Eurasian, a young man, who has been perfectly blind since he was ten years of age’. Without knowing anything more about Eurasians, a reader may be surprised that someone blinded as a child could continue his education and compose in verse that expresses complex sentiments about identity, loyalty, nationality and a sensitivity to divine providence. Those more familiar with Eurasians, or who had followed recent discourses in the press about them, knew they often occupied a vulnerable place in colonial society—caught in a world between their European fathers, some of whom died in military service or from disease, and their Indian mothers, most of whom had lost caste standing and family connections by marrying or consorting with Europeans. Because of the tenuous conditions of their mixed parentage, Eurasians comprised the majority of orphans in the presidency towns (Hawes 1996, p. 21), and struggled to look hopefully at the future since the East India Company had banned them from bearing arms in the military and serving in covenanted posts in the Company (1791) (Stark 1934, p. 19), or seeking an education in England (1785) (Gist and Wright 1973, p. 12). Their legal status as British subjects was dubious since they were ‘country-born’, regardless of their English paternity. An 1821 ruling

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by the Supreme Court in Calcutta stated that Eurasians would fall under the protection of British law only if they were the legitimate sons of European fathers (Stark 1934, p.  37).2 Poor Eurasian youths were supported by charitable orphanages and schools established by missionaries or by prominent Eurasians in the Presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, and tenuously funded by popular subscription among soldiers and officers who valued helping Eurasian children less fortunate than their own (Hawes 1996, pp. 24-30). The ‘Subscriber’ highlights the unnamed author’s twofold vulnerability in colonial society: as both Eurasian and blind. Considering the odds this renders his literary product a doubly remarkable achievement. At the same time, the quality of blindness in the purported Eurasian author evokes the tradition of blind poets and prophets—a mark of genius or even divine inspiration—as recent as England’s own John Milton, or as far back as the Greek classical world of Homer. The Oriental Herald The ‘Anthem’ was submitted by a subscriber to the Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature, a journal published in London and circulated both in the metropole and at the reaches of the East India Company territories in the East. In several issues annually, it carried new and some reprinted articles, all related to British colonial endeavors. The sheer length of each volume of several hundred pages and its wide distribution surely afforded the contents a broader readership than daily or weekly local periodicals might achieve. Such a publication required a selective editorial hand, compiling new and old materials regarded as significant, and consistent with the politics of the publication. The Oriental Herald was published in London from 1824 through 1829 by a Mr. James Silk Buckingham. His own history sheds crucial light on the journal’s readership and politics. Immediately prior to beginning the Oriental Herald, Buckingham had been expelled from Calcutta by the East India Company and deported to London on account of the perceived threat posed by his allegedly radical liberal views (critical of Company rule) in his earlier publication, the Calcutta Journal of General Literature (Turner 1930, pp.  180–197). Buckingham’s abrupt expulsion and the suppression of the Calcutta Journal resulted in the total loss of his wealth and income from the journal, as well as sundry properties in India i­ ncluding 2

 The case was Reed vs. Baginath Singh.

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a theater and a steamboat (Turner 1930, p. 190). He sued for compensation from the EIC in an 1834 petition to Parliament, which was adjudicated in his favor (Turner 1930, pp.  212–24). This highlights the oppositional role Buckingham and his publications took with respect to the alleged excesses, corruption and immorality of the East India Company—a running theme for decades since the corruption trial of Warren Hastings, and remediated by the Regulating Acts from 1784 forward which reigned in the Company’s conduct by parliamentary oversight. Just before his expulsion, Buckingham’s own Calcutta Journal hosted a vigorous debate among Eurasians and their well-wishers with respect to their complaints against various regressive measures imposed on them by the EIC, which for several decades had consigned their legal status, educational opportunities and employment potential to a tenuous condition.3 This underscores both the sour relationship between Buckingham and the East India Company, as well as his sympathy toward Eurasians. Even though the Calcutta Journal dissolved after 1823, the debate it hosted contributed to a drive at least among elite Eurasians to organize, develop a political consciousness as a community (Hawes 1996, ch. 5) and petition Parliament for redress of their grievances, a process that can be traced through other English periodicals in Calcutta in subsequent years (Ghose 1978). It culminated in an 1829 petition to Parliament on behalf of Eurasians carried to London by Eurasian leader John Ricketts and presented before Parliament the following year. Madras ‘A Subscriber’ is either resident in Madras, or at least in Madras during October 1826 when he submitted the ‘Anthem’ to the Oriental Herald. This is no surprise. All three presidency towns, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, had a sizable population of Eurasians by this period owing to the long-term presence of East India Company officials, soldiers and officers of the Company’s army, and as yet precious few marriageable European women.4 Madras had a significant mixed-race community of Portuguese 3  See the Calcutta Journal, throughout 1822, especially an intense set of letters to the editor and articles from May 1822 through March of 1823. 4  European women came in larger numbers only later in the nineteenth century. See Anne De Coursy, The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2012.

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origin already resident prior to the arrival of the English. The first men of the East India Company in Madras in the late seventeenth century tended to marry these mestiço women, but as they were Roman Catholic, East India Company officials advocated that they marry indigenous Indian women instead, incentivizing it with a cash payment to be made upon the baptism of their first child in the Church of England (Stark 1934, p. 14). With a longstanding mixed population, Madras had orphanages and schools to serve the needs of poor and orphaned Eurasians and white children, of whom Hawes estimates by the 1830s numbered between 2000 and 3000 (Hawes 1996, p. 21). Yet, the contemporary English periodicals of Madras and Bombay hardly covered Eurasian concerns, by contrast with the prominence of Eurasian matters in the Calcutta press. This perhaps gives the wrong impression, namely that Eurasians were few in number or at least were not politicized in Madras. One explanation is that the English language press of Bombay and Madras were less developed than Calcutta’s (Martin 1835, p. 408). We do know, however, that there was some degree of organizing and leadership of Eurasians in Madras. Most importantly, the parliamentary petition of the Calcutta Eurasian community was in fact preceded by one from the Eurasians of Madras in 1827 and succeeded by another from the community in Bombay in 1830 (Charlton-Stevens 2018, 48–55). When the Calcutta-based Eurasian organizers sent John Ricketts in 1830 to present their petition in Parliament on behalf of the entire mixed community, he was warmly feted in Madras, his first port of arrival on his return. There, under the leadership of Mr. Peter Carstairs, the Eurasian community gave a banquet on 3 March 1831 with over 100  in attendance (Stark 1934, pp. 109–10). Thus, the ‘Anthem’s’ 1826 submission date and 1827 publication date coincides with the parliamentary petition of the Eurasians in Madras, connecting them not only by their sentiments but making it likely that some of the same people may have had a hand in both the ‘Anthem’s’ production and submission, as well as the petition. Further clues of a connection with ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ can be seen in the fact that the Madras petition organizers preferred the term ‘Eurasian’ to name the mixed race because it was more inclusive of multiple European ancestries, in contrast to the term Indo-Briton or East Indian favored in Calcutta and Bombay, respectively (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p. 36).

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The Text Poem/Verse/Anthem as Historical Text As a historical artifact, this text gains special qualities because of its form. If this text were written in plain prose it might be an opinion piece or even an exhortation to other Eurasians, but it could not without explicit justification transcend the voice of the individual author. Composed in verse, one can imagine it being recited or sung univocally by all Eurasians. Indeed, this is what anthems are meant to do: to unite the people [of the ‘nation’] in one voice, naming universal and unity-making beliefs, loyalties, characteristics and common cause. While still gesturing toward historical circumstances and conveying personal feelings and opinions, the poetic form opens up an imaginative space for the reader to appropriate its sentiments—that is, to find a harmonic resonance with the circumstances of one’s own life. These qualities do not relegate poems to a world of private emotion; on the contrary, poems such as these are highly political and attempt to influence the reader’s political persuasions. In fact, poetry was a popular political genre in early-nineteenth-century India. Rosinka Chaudhuri explores this in the English language literary production of early-nineteenth-­ century Bengal in, for example, how members of Young Bengal in their rejection of Hindu Brahmin norms wrote subversive, incendiary poetry about the pleasures and benefits of eating beef (Chaudhuri 2012). Marathi bakhars are another example of a literary genre that does not conform to western historiographical expectations of being linear narratives of temporally precise facts, events and interpretation, yet they are, nevertheless, a valuable historical form. As Deshpande writes, ‘The crafting of plausible situations, the composition of credible and appropriate dialogue and the description of the mood of personalities before and after events have to be seen not as creative flourishes to improve the historical analysis but as crucial historical re-creation and understanding itself’ (Deshpande 2007, p.  28). History is revealed in valid and even unique ways by various literary forms, not only prose narratives of facts and events temporally marked with precision. It is unclear whether ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ was ever put to a tune and sung by school children, in orphanages or at meetings of Eurasians. However, being named an ‘anthem’ evokes the contemporary hymnody of the Church of England and congregational singing. Among

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church-going Anglican readers of the Oriental Herald, whether Eurasians in India, members of Parliament in London or colonial officials in other colonies, the association of ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ with hymns would not be missed. Indeed, readers may have been reminded of the numerous popular hymns composed by the prolific Bishop Reginald Heber who was Bishop of India. Heber’s hymns captured the civilizing mission of British colonialism in the mode of Christian duty in verse similar to ‘The Eurasian Anthem’. Heber’s life and ministry coincided with the evangelical turn in British politics, which saw Christianity as a morally reforming force, first of the conduct of the East India Company and second of Indian society. The evangelicals were behind opening up East India Company territories to missionaries for the first time in 1813, and a general Anglicizing trend of colonial policy, exemplified by Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education (1835) and the English Education Act of the same year. Heber was at the center of this ideological trend, which blended Protestant evangelicalism, English culture and colonialism, and regarded it as a powerful moral force for good. In his study of Heber’s writings, Cook argues that these sentiments came to typify early-nineteenth-century English bourgeois values. (Cook 2001, pp.  131–164) Thus, ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ had the potential to activate many sympathetic registers among its early-nineteenth-century readers throughout the British world, while simultaneously focusing attention on the injustice suffered by the mixed race in India. Rhetoric and Sentiment According to its form, ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ in its historical context is a political and religious text that held the potential for wide resonances throughout the empire. Politically, it speaks of rights, liberty, unity, power and, perhaps chiefly, laws. Employing words like ‘blessing’, ‘grace’, ‘great commission’, ‘fate’, and ‘heaven’, it evokes the notion that divine providence underwrites the colonial project. Finally, it situates a collective identity for Eurasians within a constellation of British colonial political and religious ideals. We turn to the text itself to unpack these elements further in order to ascertain what voices and interests are audible or absent. The poem opens with the emergence of Britain as a political entity, ‘When Britain, from the azure sea / First rose the Land of Liberty’, apparently at the creation of the world. Britain is uniquely the Land of Liberty.

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As it is born, it receives a divine mission, the ‘great commission’. This line directly evokes the Christian gospel of Matthew, (28:16-20),5 where the resurrected Jesus Christ, just before ascending into heaven, instructs his apostles to go out to the world and share the faith and baptize the converted. ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ summarizes Britain’s great commission: ‘Go forth to India’s distant strand, / Subdue and civilize the land, / And better her condition’. Britain’s mission from Christ is to bring civilization and docility to India. He could hardly evoke a higher or more pure authority on which to base Britain’s colonial project. No doubt this notion of the civilizing mission aligns with that of Evangelicals and Liberals in Parliament—the very sort Eurasians would appeal to in the petition carried by Ricketts in 1830—as against the greedy and corrupt leadership of the East India Company and their Tory allies. The poem asserts British law is the tool by which to ‘civilize and subdue’ and ‘better’ India’s condition: ‘Grant her thy laws, dispense them fair, / And bless the sable nation’. British law is analogous to the gospel for it is seen to be a blessing. Contrary to the prevailing system, which applied different codes of law (and courts, judges and juries) based on whether the persons concerned were British or Hindu or Muslim, and living in the jurisdictions of the Presidencies or not, the author of this poem advocates that the same law would apply to everyone, starting first with Eurasians: ‘To all and each extend thy grace, / But chiefly to an unborn race, / That shall be called Eurasian’. Embedded here is a criticism of the East India Company for the ambiguous legal position Eurasians suffered in its territories when it came to the status and nature of marriages, the religious codes undergirding the law they would be held to, whether or not they could purchase property, the education they could obtain or for whom they could work. In the eyes of the author, it is a matter of birthright and justice: ‘For recollecting whence they [Eurasians] came, / They shall demand their due!’. Having first established a religious foundation for British colonialism, and then identifying British law as the principal gift to bestow upon India, the author proceeds to make several moves that place Eurasians in a central 5  ‘16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”’ (NIV translation).

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role in that project. He portrays Eurasians as loyal British subjects par excellence because they are ‘her flesh and bone’ and thus linked by filial ties. With ‘more than filial ties, / The bulwark of her power shall raise / Against a hostile nation’, the author makes reference to the historic importance of Eurasians in the military service of the company from which they had all but been excluded for more than 30 years. Under arms Eurasians would once again serve happily and usefully, as their European paternal forbears had. The author goes on to characterize Eurasians as essential unifiers of British and Indian interests, for even their bodies testified to the unity of both peoples: ‘Allied to both the black and white, / They shall both interests unite, / And form the essential props / Of all thy future ample sway’. The idea that Eurasians could act as cultural brokers between British and Indians because they belong in some way to both groups is an argument that further supports their fair treatment on the basis of their usefulness to British rule.

Who Speaks? By exploring its context and text we have established that ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ is highly political in nature. It staked a position in the discourse on the nature of British values and on the underlying purpose and principles of colonialism. In so doing the ‘Anthem’ also put forward a clear representation of Eurasians identity in relation to the British state and colonial enterprise in India. Through the Oriental Herald, these views circulated in the metropole and throughout the empire. The strong claims made in the ‘Anthem’ and its wide circulation heighten the importance of the central question: whose Eurasian voice is speaking? Who dared to speak for all Eurasians, and on what authority? There are a host of possibilities. A certain answer may elude us, but we may uncover power dynamics which affected Eurasians deeply from this period forward throughout their history in British India—by voicing claims of Eurasian identity and political position, by silencing the voices of dissent or rendering invisible classes within the community. First a reminder of the purported authorship of the ‘Anthem’: an unnamed Eurasian young man, blind since the age of ten. This identity suggests a number of possibilities. Any young poet may be lauded for his/ her skill, but to master the literary arts without sight is more extraordinary. Such a figure could evoke the illustrious blind poets, prophets and

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­ atriarchs of Greek, English or Hebrew tradition, such as Virgil, Tiresias, p Milton or Isaac. He would be placed in the company of great men of old. Another interpretation is that this young man may have been, like so many other Eurasian youth in Madras, the orphaned child of a soldier of the East India Company who died from war or disease. If his mother survived, being raised by her in the home of her father may well have been out of the question, having likely been rendered outcaste for her relationship with a foreigner. It is reasonable to imagine that the boy would have been raised in the strict and spartan atmosphere of a military orphan school supported by the popular subscription of soldiers and officers, or under the watchful care of moralizing missionaries in schools supported by the beneficence of charitable sponsors in India and England. Madras was by no means exceptional, for in the Calcutta Presidency during this period, fortunate and well-educated Eurasians also spearheaded initiatives that catered to promising Eurasian children, with academic education such as The Parental Academy or technical apprenticeships in the Marine School (Kyd 1822). If the author was of this profile, he would be a gleaming success story of a Eurasian who, despite his physical misfortune, unfortunate circumstances and subaltern position in society, showed great promise and potential when given a chance. He would be a rare, successful subaltern. In either case, the views expressed in the ‘Anthem’ would align the author with the politics of liberals and evangelicals in Parliament, missionaries in India and their sponsors at home, and the elite and well-educated Eurasians who were behind the petitions to Parliament. They all harbored a long festering suspicion of the East India Company as immoral in both deed and policy following the scandals of the eighteenth century. They saw Christianity and English Law as forces for good that went hand-in-­ hand, whether at home or in the colonies. What a clever young man, this author would have appeared to be! Especially if he attained such wisdom from a precarious childhood lacking the full health of sight, support of family or the advantages of class and means. But rather than a subaltern figure, could the author be the blind son of a Eurasian elite? Could he be the son of one of the organizers of the Eurasian Petition in Madras? This is possible, but improbable. Eurasian leaders were prominent men, in private business or in administrative services for the Company. As they were not fearful to take on this public role, give speeches and put their names to the petition, why would they have insisted upon the anonymity of their son’s authorship of a work that

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recommended his genius and reflected well upon his parents? It is an unlikely scenario. The anonymity of the author, coupled with the description given of him, suggest more than his subaltern status among Eurasians in colonial society. First, it creates more imaginative space for the words and sentiments of the ‘Anthem’ to be appropriated as their own by any and all Eurasians, which befits the form of an ‘anthem’, as explained in the previous section. Second, it allows the possibility that the blind Eurasian young man is a fictitious figure contrived by elites—be they Eurasian leaders, anti-EIC liberals, evangelicals or missionaries—to assert one voice for all Eurasians that opposes EIC policies and appears to emanate from even the humble classes and not only the elite. Creating such an appearance was important because the grievances expressed in the ‘Anthem’ and Eurasian petitions to Parliament were largely the concerns of a privileged class, such as owning property outside the Presidency towns, traveling to England for education or becoming Covenanted Officers in the Company’s service. Due to persistent poverty, most Eurasians could never have aspired to these things even prior to the restrictions being enacted, nor would they benefit directly if and when they were lifted. Perhaps if a subaltern Eurasian voice expressed a perspective resonant with Eurasian elites, they would be taken more seriously by lawmakers in London as an oppressed class who longed for the execution of justice. Whether the blind Eurasian young man is a contrived author, there is no doubt that his description and sentiments constitute a counter-­ archetype of the Eurasian, for it contests those in popular circulation in which Eurasians were portrayed as a rising menace. An early example is given by Viscount Valencia, who in 1791 was commissioned to report to the Court of Directors of the East India Company on the state of affairs in India: The most rapidly accumulating evil in Bengal is the increase of half-caste children. […] In every country where this intermediate caste has been permitted to rise, it has ultimately tended to its ruin. Spanish-America and San Domingo are examples of this fact. […] Although they are not permitted to hold offices under the Company, yet they act as clerks in almost every mercantile house; and many of them are annually sent to England to receive the benefits of an [sic] European education. With numbers in their favor, with a close relationship to the natives, and without an equal proportion of the

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pusillanimity and indolence which is natural to them, what may not in the future time be dreaded from them? (Valencia, 1809)

Indeed, Valencia’s report may have influenced the exclusion of Eurasians from Company military and covenanted service, which came into effect that same year. According to Hawes (1996, p.  76–80), such disdainful views among the British only increased through the first decades of the nineteenth century, and as European women arrived in larger numbers in India. ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ counters the negative archetype of divided loyalties, indolence and revolutionary potential by replacing it with a Eurasian identity marked by Imperial loyalty and Christian conviction, political utility and the potential of aiding the military and moral might of the growing empire. While the actual voice of the author is mute or ambiguous, his imagined voice is important to the efficacy of this counter-­archetype. The reader imagines the author to be doubly disadvantaged as both Eurasian and blind, but bright and ambitious, a Eurasian success story and a testament to the redemption and progress possible through extant and burgeoning Eurasian institutions and initiatives. The counter-­ archetypical Eurasian of the ‘Anthem’ deserves recognition and congratulations, an earned place at the table of colonial white society. The inclusion of just enough but not too much of the author’s identity—a combination of voicing and silencing—is essential to the claim that the text is in fact ‘The Eurasian Anthem’, and not just the opinion of a marginal, if bright, individual Eurasian. I have argued that the purported author’s identity is probably meant to be read as subaltern, and quite likely is a fictitious, contrived figure, yet we cannot know with certainty. Clearly the institutional, structural and intellectual conditions of the ‘Anthem’s’ emergence on the public stage is completely conditioned by elites, even if the author was a subaltern Eurasian. By the time the ‘Anthem’ was published in 1827, the elite Eurasians of Calcutta—James Kyd (founder of Kiddepore Docks), John William Ricketts (Board of Customs), and  Henry Derozio (poet and teacher at the Hindu College), among others—had organized Eurasians with education and means to petition authorities to lift the ban on people of their race from being arms-bearing soldiers, officers or covenanted officials of the EIC, from pursuing education in England, and from legal protections of their person and property under the law. Eurasians in Madras were already launching their own petition.

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Besides their political activities, Eurasian elites busied themselves with numerous projects to establish schools, fund the purchase of books, create apprenticeships and urge Eurasians to consider forms of employment in skilled trades rather than look only for employment in the EIC.  Their efforts were targeted at lower-class Eurasians, such as the purported author of ‘The Eurasian Anthem’. Some of these leaders, such as Ricketts, had themselves spent time as missionaries too. The Oriental Herald was a publication for elites, whether in London or Madras or any other colonial setting. The political situation of the journal and its editor speaks to a closeness to power, even if Buckingham had fallen on the wrong side of it at the time of his expulsion from India. His politics undoubtedly conditioned his editorial discretion to publish the ‘Anthem’. His vindication, when Parliament ruled in his favor in 1834 in his case against the East India Company for his expulsion and dispossession of his property reveals the sympathy he enjoyed in Westminster. Without diminishing the good intentions or the material improvement elite Eurasians or Englishmen may have achieved for lower-class Eurasians, the latter were spoken about and spoken for while their own voices remained mute. Were their needs, desires and intentions consistent with or at odds with the aims and sentiments of elite Eurasians? If the ‘Anthem’ was composed by elites, did they truly feel a kinship with the lower classes, or merely wish to remove the shame of poverty and its presumed attendant vices from public view by the propaganda of a successful subaltern? While we come up short if certain answers to these questions were our aim, we can say with surety that in the 1820s the subaltern Eurasian could not speak.

A History of Contested Voice and Power ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ creates the impression of ethnic unity among Eurasians and that they constituted a distinct community. In reality, class differences probably overshadowed the kinship they shared by virtue of their mixed racial origins. In the end, the elite pen of ‘A Subscriber’, or the editorial discretion of the Oriental Herald, at best controlled or at worse coopted the voice of a Eurasian subaltern to rally Eurasians into ‘a ­reluctant

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community’6 behind a set of interests, convictions and loyalties whose advantages would accrue mainly to elites. The fiction of a univocal voice of Eurasians would continue, with elites speaking for the whole to Company and Crown. In ‘The Eurasian Anthem’, we have a patriotic poem in the mouth of a model subaltern, one who has clearly surmounted difficulties to show great promise as an obedient son of Britain. He is proof that Eurasians are worthy of what they claim as their birthright: equality to their British fathers, and a share in the Imperial project. These verses constitute a voice from below that affirmed the project being pursued by elites above: three parliamentary petitions of 1827, 1829 and 1830 from the Eurasians in three Presidencies. The subsequent Charter Act of 1833 did little to remedy the grievances presented by petitioners, although they were heard and discussed in committee. The English Education Act of 1835 established the policy of Anglicizing India through promoting the English language and western education. Together these two Acts of Parliament placed Eurasians in competition with the rapidly increasing number of English-educated Indians for the un-covenanted posts in service to the Company (Hawes 1996, p. 149). By mid-century (1853), Eurasian elites again vented their dissatisfaction in another petition to Parliament, yet their distinctly intermediate position between the English and Indians was largely set in employment patterns and the view of colonial officials (Hawes 1996, 151). The Indian Mutiny (1857) cemented this reality, yet also made Eurasians the natural native allies of the British. Thus, as Company rule ended and Crown rule began in 1858, Eurasians were preferred for employment in the new and expanding government services, especially the railways (Bear 2007). The community also expanded dramatically due to an influx of mainly Irish soldiers in the British Indian army following the Mutiny, who married into and expanded the Eurasian community. The community began to organize regional associations, beginning in Calcutta in 1876, as a means of consolidating a political voice to advocate with government much as Indian nationalists were doing, for example, in the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. In the 1911 census, Eurasians began to be considered Anglo-Indians, a term which formerly meant a person of 6  I borrow the concept from Christopher Hawes, who argues in chapter 2 of Poor Relations that Eurasians came to ethnic cohesion mainly through the proscriptive rulings of the EIC, whereas class differences had previously overshadowed their racial solidarity.

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­ uropean ancestry living in India for a temporary period, to anyone born E and permanently resident in India with European ancestry in the male line. Despite apparent confusion in census data for a time, Eurasians rather quickly adopted the new designation. The Montague-Chelmsford Reforms in 1919 were a watershed moment for Anglo-Indians because they conceded to Indian nationalist demands for greater Indianization of the government services. While they had in 1870 been deemed ‘statutory natives of India’ and thus ought to have been included in new quotas for the employment of Indians, in reality, Anglo-Indians were often excluded. Confusion about their legal status was an issue which kept coming back to haunt them (Abel 1988, p. 2). In the post-1919 period, this provided the impetus for wide-scale organizing. An early-twentieth-century Anglo-Indian writer based in Calcutta, Herbert Alick Stark, wrote a number of books that may be viewed as Anglo-Indian nationalist propaganda in light of the pressures they faced in that era. The titles say a great deal: The Call of the Blood, or Anglo-Indians and the Sepoy Mutiny (1932), John Ricketts, Being a Narrative Account of Anglo-Indian Affairs During the Eventful Years from 1791 to 1835 (1934) and Hostages to India, Or the Life Story of the Anglo-Indian Race (1936). Stark portrays Anglo-Indians as a British colonial community whose identity is animated by their blood ties to the British, but who are nevertheless a distinct ‘race’. They are unfailingly loyal to the British as they demonstrated in 1857, but the British have disgraced themselves by treating Anglo-Indians unfairly at the turn of the nineteenth century which resulted in the honorable petition, and still hold Anglo-Indians ‘hostage’ in India. In 1919, renowned Anglo-Indian ophthalmologist, Sir Henry Gidney, led a movement to amalgamate regional associations of Anglo-Indians under the oldest, the Bengal Association (1876), creating a national body that could project a unified voice in nationalist politics (Abel 1988, 106). Indian nationalism necessarily had to absorb the sheer diversity of South Asian castes, communities, linguistic groups and religious affiliations. The anxiety of all minorities about their position in the future order presented a common ground on which Anglo-Indians could be nationalists alongside Sikhs, Parsis or Muslims who also sought their place in the Indian nation. Gidney represented Anglo-Indian interests at all three Round Table Conferences in London and was principal drafter of the Minority Pact (1931) (Abel 1988, pp. 134–43). This political activity resulted in the Government of India Act (1935) reversing the discrimination of Anglo-Indians in employment, clarifying their classification and protecting

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their reserved jobs in the railways, telegraphs and customs (Abel 1988, pp. 149–50). Since the 1920s, Gidney described Anglo-Indian identity in terms of a British fatherland and an Indian motherland. Britain’s indifference to these ‘paternal responsibilities’ made Gidney emphasize that India was the Anglo-Indian homeland, yet its culture was British in nature (Blunt 2005, pp.  43–5). Gidney died in 1942 and was succeeded by the prominent lawyer, Frank Anthony. Anthony further developed Gidney’s ideas in the official rhetoric: Anglo-Indians were ‘Indian by nationality and Anglo-­ Indian by community’, thus situating Anglo-Indians within the salient political categories—nationality and community (Blunt 2005, p.  49; Anthony 1986). Over a few short decades, these elite projections of Anglo-Indian identity shifted from claiming British to Indian nationalism as its foundation. Anglo-Indian identity was always a case of identity politics. A debate raged both in the open and behind the scenes in competing associations of Anglo-Indians with divergent policies from the All India Association. The colonial archive contains a flurry of letters to the colonial government contesting the All India Association’s authority to speak for all Anglo-Indians, especially those who were poor or politically disempowered. In contrast to the 1820s when subaltern Anglo-Indians were inaudible in their own voice, by the 1930s, we see the emergence of non-elite Anglo-Indian voices in the public sphere or privately directed to government. This is likely due to dramatic advances in educational attainment even among poor or indigent Anglo-Indians, due to the proliferation of missionary schools especially after 1857. One matter on which the non-­ elite voices can be heard is the question of Anglo-Indian emigration following Independence. Although the ravages of the Second World War took a toll on the hundreds of thousands of Indians (including Anglo-Indians) who served in the British military in Burma, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and then Partition violence struck terror in the hearts of minorities, Frank Anthony insisted that Anglo-Indians’ home was in India alone. He negotiated with Congress for safeguards for Anglo-­ Indians in the post-Independence order. As a result, it was the policy of the AIAIA to oppose Anglo-Indian emigration, even though many wished to do so. The colonial government took the AIAIA position as the official will of all Anglo-Indians. Anglo-Indian leaders, colonial officials and

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Indian nationalist leaders had in effect made an elite pact that would determine the future of many without regard for their position. In direct opposition to Anthony and the AIAIA, various new pro-­ migration groups of Anglo-Indians barraged government with vociferous requests for assistance to emigrate en masse to various destinations, citing understandable fear for their position after Independence. The Britasian League of Calcutta sought help migrating to the Andaman Islands.7 The Progressive Loyalist Association of Mussoorie advocated for the same.8 Col. Georges L. Fleury put forward a proposal for Anglo-Indian migration to Brazil en masse.9 The correspondence of these pro-emigration groups with the British authorities strikingly reveals how contested the Anglo-Indian voice of political authority was within the Anglo-Indian community. That the AIAIA opposed any government sponsorship of an emigration scheme, yet it did not object to individuals emigrating if they chose to, is significant because obviously only wealthier Anglo-Indians could self-fund their emigration. Pro-emigration groups vociferously condemned this as unfair, complaining that the AIAIA hardly represented anyone in the community, but only elites whom they did not choose. The Britasian League argued, ‘Mr. Frank Anthony, M.C.A., Central, as a leader, [was] thrust upon the people by the very British authorities who today are leaving India, in as much that he has been elevated to this position not by the free election of the people but by the nomination of Government officials’.10 The Progressive Loyalist Association asserted in a telegram: ‘Anglo-Indian Association not wholly representative [of the] community. Strength community half million alleged membership [of the AIAIA] twenty thousand. Andamans movement sponsored various leagues daily gathering strength. Pray support’.11

7  Letter from Hon. Sec. Mr. Cardus, Britasian League, 9 Marquis Street, Calcutta to Secretary of State for India, London, 5 June 1947, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC. 8  Telegram, “Progressive Loyalist Association,” Ronstadt House Mussoorie, U.P., to DLT Secretary of State for India, India House, London, 26 June 1947, L/PJ/7/10595 OIOC. 9  Col. Georges L.  Fleury, “Thousands of Desperate Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmans Look to Brazil For Their Future and to Britain for Immediate Assistance”, L/ PJ/7/10647 OIOC. 10  Letter from Hon. Sec. Mr. Cardus, Britasian League, 9 Marquis Street, Calcutta to Secretary of State for India, London, 5 June 1947, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC. 11   Telegram, from President, Progressive Loyalist Association, Mussoorie, to Prime Minister, Downing Street, 14 July 1947, L/PJ/7/10595 OIOC.

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Although several members of Parliament urged that the government re-evaluate their policy and consider these requests for assisted emigration, the government remained true to the Anglo-Indian Association alone. After months of harassment, Mr. David Gammans, M.P., and several others, articulated the policy of government: The AIAIA is the authoritative representative of the Anglo-Indian community; Anglo-Indian representatives sit in the Constituent Assembly, Provincial legislatures and on the advisory committee to the Constituent Assembly concerning minorities, all of whom are members of the AIAIA; and that the AIAIA opposes emigration schemes. ‘Accordingly H.M.G. have taken no action to sponsor any general schemes of emigration of Anglo-Indians to foreign countries, the Dominions, the Colonies, or the United Kingdom’. Although he recommended Anglo-Indians remain in India, he added that there was nothing preventing their immigrating to the UK if they wish, and that the UK High Commissioner was  authorized to offer assistance to individuals in special cases. But he discouraged this course of action because of post-war hardships in Britain: ‘We are in fact, asked by the ministry of Health to ensure that it is made clear to persons without pecuniary resources who intend to come to the U.K. that this may well mean their having to put up with life on an austerity basis under hostel conditions’.12 Still, the India Office papers preserve numerous individual requests from poor Anglo-­ Indians for assistance in emigrating, but few appear to have received a favorable reply. 13

Conclusion This chapter began with ‘The Eurasian Anthem’, an early-nineteenth-­ century text that asserts a single voice for all Eurasians. It was possibly the first published work to do so, followed soon after by the three petitions to Parliament for redress of grievances against the East Indian Company by Eurasians in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. The text left the question of authorship dubious, which led us to ask, whose voice we are hearing? By exploring the various social, spatial and literary contexts that surround the ‘Anthem’, and the form and content of the text of the ‘Anthem’ itself, we 12  Letter 12 July 1947, Mr. A. Henderson, India Office, to Mr. David Gammans, M.P., L/ PJ/7/10595 OIOC. 13  See, for example, Letter from Mrs. C.  A. Jones, Lucknow (Cantt), to British High Commissioner, Delhi, 13 January 1947, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC.

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came to a number of conclusions: The reader is meant to understand the ‘Anthem’ as the voice of a successful subaltern Eurasian, a counter-­ archetype to that of the stereotypical Eurasian who was much maligned at the time. It is also quite possible that the purported author, a blind Eurasian boy, is the fictitious creation of elite Eurasians, perhaps the organizers of the Eurasian Petition from Madras the following year (1827). Even if we are wrong, the trappings of the ‘Anthem’s’ emergence—literary journals, metropolitan editors, the power politics between Parliament and the East India Company, the evangelical impulse in colonial discourse—are thoroughly elite and controlled by elites. Even if the author is the purported subaltern youth, the voice we hear is intoned when and how it is only because it aligns with the goals of an elite project. ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ makes Eurasians seem like model colonizers by an almost inborn identity, not only the wealthy and well-educated among them but also the blind, orphaned and lower classes who constituted their majority. But we have no sense of subaltern Eurasian voices in that period, nor the different interests, affiliations, views and desires they may have had, with respect to British colonialism, employment, law or religion. We cannot hear how they may have not aligned with elite interests because their voice is silent. While ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ was possibly the first published attempt to speak for Eurasians with one voice, it would not be the last. In fact, the history of the mixed-race community in British India is one where the question of who gets to speak for the group persisted and was fought over, as we have seen, especially in light of Indian nationalism in the first half of the twentieth century. What changed over the century between the 1820s and 1920s, however, was that most of the Eurasian community (Anglo-­ Indians as they were now called) became  literate and educated, even if many remained poor. While elites continued to be seen as the legitimate and official spokespersons of Anglo-Indian identity as far as colonial and emergent Indian government were concerned, they were no longer the only voice. Dissenting Anglo-Indians, including the lower classes, in the twentieth century could and did express themselves in organizations and as individuals to the state, though with limited success. ‘The Eurasian Anthem’ foreshadows the unfolding history of the mixed race of colonial India, which was marked by a persistent contest over whose voice may speak for the identity of the whole, and on what basis the power to make that determination rests.

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References Print Sources (1829, November). Petition of the East Indians to the House of Commons. Calcutta Journal of General Literature, 23(71), pp. 261–264. A Subscriber. (1827, April). The Eurasian Anthem. Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature, 13(40), 17. Abel, Evelyn. (1988). The Anglo-Indian Community: Survival in India. Chanakya. Anthony, Frank. (1986). "Interview of Frank Anthony." The Anglo-Indians. BBC 4 TV Documentary, Directed by David Maloney, Produced by Zia Mohyeddin, Central Independent Television. Bear, L. (2007). Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self. New York: Columbia University Press. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Oxford: Blackwell. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2018). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism. London: Routledge. Cook, G. (2001). From India's Coral Strand': Reginald Heber and the missionary project. International Journal of Hindu Studies, 5(2), 131–164. Ghose, B. (Ed.). (1978). Selections of English Periodicals of Nineteenth Century Bengal. Calcutta: Papyrus. Chaudhuri, R. (2012). Freedom and Beefsteaks: Colonial Calcutta Culture. Calcutta: Orient Blackswan. Deshpande, P. (2007). Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India. Columbia: Columbia University Press. Deshpande, P. (1827). The Eurasian Anthem. Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature, 13, 17. Hawes, C. (1996). Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India 1773-1833. London: Curzon. Gist, N. P., & Wright, R. D. (1973). Marginality and Identity: Anglo-Indians as a Racially-Mixed Minority in India. Leiden: E. J Brill. Kyd, James. (1822, May). Thoughts, how to better the condition of Indo-Britons; by a Practical Reformer. Friend of India, V (1821), p. 33. Republished in the Calcutta Journal of Politics and General Literature, 3(123), p. 313. Martin, R.  M. (1835). History of the British Colonies, vol. 1. London: James Cochrane & Co.. Stark, H.  A. (1934). John Ricketts, Being a Narrative Account of Anglo-Indian Affairs During the Eventful Years from 1791 to 1835. Calcutta: Wilsone & Sons. Turner, R.  E. (1930). James Silk Buckingham, 1786-1855; A Social Biography. Whittlesey House: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

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Viscount George Valentia. (1809). Voyages and Travels in Ceylon, The Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt in the Years 1802, 1804, and 1806, Vol. I. William Hiller, pp.  241-242, republished in Noel P.  Gist and Roy Dean Wright. (1973). Marginality and Identity: Anglo-Indians as a Racially-Mixed Minority in India, E. J. Brill, p. 13.

Archival Sources: Oriental the British Library

and

India Office Collection (OIOC) at

Letter from Hon. Sec. Mr. Cardus, Britasian League, 9 Marquis Street, Calcutta to Secretary of State for India, London, 5 June 1947a, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC. Telegram, “Progressive Loyalist Association,” Ronstadt House Mussoorie, U.P., to DLT Secretary of State for India, India House, London, 26 June 1947a, L/ PJ/7/10595 OIOC. Col. Georges L.  Fleury, “Thousands of Desperate Anglo-Indians and Anglo-­ Burmans Look to Brazil for Their Future and to Britain for Immediate Assistance”, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC. Letter from Hon. Sec. Mr. Cardus, Britasian League, 9 Marquis Street, Calcutta to Secretary of State for India, London, 5 June 1947b, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC. Telegram, from President, Progressive Loyalist Association, Mussoorie, to Prime Minister, Downing Street, 14 July 1947b, L/PJ/7/10595 OIOC Letter 12 July 1947, Mr. A. Henderson, India Office, to Mr. David Gammans, M.P., L/PJ/7/10595 OIOC. Letter from Mrs. C. A. Jones, Lucknow (Cantt), to British High Commissioner, Delhi, 13 January 1947, L/PJ/7/10647 OIOC

CHAPTER 4

The End of Greater Anglo-India: Partitioned Anglo Identities in Burma and Pakistan Uther Charlton-Stevens

For much of the early twentieth century, Anglo-India was a broad imaginative space, extending into the borderlands of the Indian Empire, encompassing what are now the nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India and Pakistan. The first great contraction of that space came in 1937 with the constitutional separation of what had hitherto been treated as an Indian Province through the implementation of the 1935 Government of Burma Act. At the time this was a largely successful and peaceful parting of ways, although one which would take Anglos living in Burma on their own divergent trajectory. But the disastrous, shambolic and bloody British imperial retreat from Burma and the Japanese wartime occupation that followed in 1942–45 created the conditions in which suppressed ethnic resentments and conflicts would result in widespread killings and deadly population movements that anticipated (and persisted beyond) the horrors of India’s more infamous partition into two dominions in 1947. For a mixed-race community whose largest political organisation in the

U. Charlton-Stevens (*) Volgograd State University, Volgograd, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_4

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twentieth century had proudly proclaimed its ‘All India and Burma’ character, and which had conceived of Anglo-India in those broad geographic terms, both of these contractions, or vivisections as Gandhi put it, were ultimately, if not always immediately, painful. They constituted losses of a shared history and identity, albeit with localised inflections. This chapter explores an early phase of conceptualising a broader Anglo-Indian collectivity and geographic space, connected to varying levels of identification with Britishness, Europeanness and mixedness. It covers the attempts of political leaders to mould, direct and reshape ‘Anglo’ identities in different settings, revealing the depths of patriotic attachments that situated Anglo-­ Indians and Anglo-Burmans as new ‘British race(s)’, in line with the early settler identities of Britain’s white ‘Dominions’. At a leadership level, it was more common to celebrate these groups’ racial ‘mixedness’ in various ways, whilst pragmatically seeking the inclusion of those who disavowed Asian ancestry. The stories of a few individuals, especially nurses, alongside other evidence, foreground the phenomenon of racial passing (cf. Watson 1970). These early Anglo identities and the implications of two processes of bifurcation provide a crucial basis for understanding subsequent divergent evolutions of Anglo-Indian identity in different diasporic settings.

Loyal Sons and Daughters of Britain and Its Indian Empire ‘On 5 July, the Indian community congregated in large numbers in London’s Caxton Hall to’ condemn the assassination of Curzon Wylie, a senior British colonial official by Madan Lal Dhingra (Sampath 2019, p. 208). Dhingra’s own family disowned him, and the mood in the hall among a range of Indian communities and prominent personages was one of a nearly universal outrage. But whilst the Aga Khan was concerned with how best Indians could ‘rehabilitate themselves among their fellow subjects of the Empire in the face of a dastardly act of revolt’ (cited in ibid.), a lone young man among these loyalists named Vinayak Savarkar stood up against the call for a unanimous adoption of a resolution condemning this ‘act of a fanatic of madman, which had [apparently] aroused the deepest indignation of all the people of India.’ (Cited in ibid.) His reward was to be instantly greeted with: Cries of ‘Turn him out’, ‘Pull him down’ … [whereupon] a well-built Eurasian, Edward Parker, sprang on Vinayak and struck him in the right eye.

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His spectacles broke and he suffered a broken nose. Blood all over his face, Vinayak leapt on to a chair and in a loud ringing voice announced that he was against the resolution and … would oppose it till the last drop of his blood … M.P.T. Acharya had a stick in his hand and ‘instinctively struck him (Parker) on his head’. The assailants however pulled Vinayak down and he was eventually thrown out … Parker … wrote in The Times … [of] the greatness of the British Empire and all his ancestors who had established English rule in India. (Ibid., pp. 210–211)

The following year R. E. Cully penned ‘“The Euro-Asian” or “Anglo-­ Indian.” A Burma Brochure by One of the Community’ (1910) running to 121 pages without its appendices. It included endorsements by ‘Bishop W.  F. Oldham. D.  D.’, the Rangoon Gazette, the Rangoon Times, the Times of Burma and the Anglo-Indian, Madras, which stated: We take pleasure in saying that this book has been extremely well written and behoves every member of the Anglo-Indian Association to possess a copy. The author deals very vividly with the problem of the community, viz., its status. (Cully 1910, front matter)

Both the author and reviewer took it for granted that they were part of the same group. This applied under the broader category of ‘Eurasian’ by which the mixed were officially categorised until the census of the following year but also under the term Anglo-Indian, as Cully stated: It is however, coming to be universally recognized that unless Eurasians and Anglo-Indians throughout the Empire combine by earnest and active co-­ operation to form a strong organization for the purpose of promoting their common interests, both social and political their voice will not be heard … For this purpose should be organised a Central body or an Association. … Thus Union becomes strength … the Eurasian, or as it now prefers to be called the Anglo-Indian Association. Of these latter Associations in India, that of Madras … gave signs of strenuous activity; but what progress it and those of Calcutta, Allahabad and others have been making is not precisely known … Why these bodies do not exert more influence and are not a power in the land … appears due to the fact that all who should join the Associations do not do so for various reasons; those who are well to do and happen to possess a light complexion shrink from membership, as they pass off for European and do not therefore like to be identified with Eurasians whose color, generally speaking, is more or less brown or dark and for whose exclusive benefit they believe the organization is intended … a special

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c­ ollection … should be raised … from all those who join or have joined the local Associations … for erecting a suitable Hall for the Central Association, Bombay; and in due course similar or smaller Halls … at other important centres, such as Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon and others. Thus … the Eurasian and domiciled community … [would secure] a locus standi … Government will then doubtless recognize its right to be included in the general scheme of constitutional reform…. (Ibid., pp. 68–74)

During the First World War four leaders—John Abbott of Jhansi who headed the largest organisation, then known as the Anglo-Indian Empire League; Lionel Ingels, President of the Anglo-Indian Association of Calcutta; Mr. T.  Richmond, Honorary President of the Anglo-Indian Association of Southern India at Madras; and Mr. J. E. DuBern, President of the Empire League’s Burma branch—came together in a broader Anglo-­Indian Federation to recruit volunteers for the belatedly sanctioned Anglo-Indian Force (AIF) (Ibid., p. 63) (Fig. 4.1). In fact, they targeted ‘the whole of India, Burmah and Ceylon’, including modern Sri Lanka which had always been treated as a separate colony and whose mixed-race group, the Burghers, had a separate history as well as a higher civic status

Fig. 4.1  ‘The Anglo-Indian Force, 1916’, Cover illustration. (Robbie 1919)

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that prominent voices among the mixed in India had looked upon with jealousy since the days of the Ricketts Petition of 1830. Both Abbott and DuBern’s own sons volunteered and served in the AIF (Ibid., pp. 11, 29). The sanctioning of this force was the fruition of longstanding efforts by mixed-race politicians through the nineteenth and early twentieth century to overturn the 1790s East India Company official prohibitions on their employment in its armies. Though never fully effective, these had operated between the Great Rebellion of 1857, in which the mixed had also fought alongside the British, and the sanctioning of the AIF as an effective colour bar on their enlistment into British regiments stationed in India. Seeking an equalisation of status to that of colonial Britons with whom they claimed ties of religion, culture and kinship, the possibility of serving on the lowly paid terms of the Indian Sepoy was never contemplated. As one of their earlier leaders in the Imperial Legislative Council, Walter Culley Madge, had previously declared: …sneers have been flung at certain classes of our people, but I feel that what man has done in the past man can do in the future, and the story of the Mutiny … belongs for ever to our class. We have rendered services there that have been amply recognised … with the evidence upon record of the fighting qualities of those of our race who claim some kind of reversion to the British type of character. (Madge, cited in ‘Anglo-Indian Regiment’, Statesman, 12 July 1912)

Unlike the Indian Army, the AIF units were treated as an ‘integral’ part of the British Army. The sanctioning of the AIF was therefore taken as a confirmation of the desire among the great bulk of the group and its leadership to assert a kind of imperial Britishness (cf. Rush 2011) by descent. As a pamphlet on the AIF compiled by the Empire League’s General Secretary, C. T. Robbie recounted: Long before the Great War … leaders of the Domiciled Anglo-Indian Community strongly advocated the raising and maintaining of separate Anglo-Indian Reg[imen]ts. on exactly the same basis and footing as that of British Reg[imen]ts … In 1914, when the War burst, these same leaders, both in and out of Council, implored the Indian Government to grant the necessary sanction … At that time there were thousands of young men in India burning with patriotic zeal. Still the authorities delayed. Red-tape officialdom barred the way and it was not till practically two years after that the sanction was obtained and the Anglo-Indian Community was called upon to

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furnish 1200 men … and the League and Associations of India were requested to use all means in their power to make the Force a success … A large inauguration meeting was held at Bombay … and after earnest, blood-­ stirring speeches, amidst the wildest enthusiasm the first one hundred volunteers were obtained. I do not think anything could have rivaled the first month … Recruiting agents threw overboard private business work, and scampered all over the country, pleading, cajoling, urging, threatening and obtaining volunteers in hundreds …. (Robbie, p. 39)

Here Robbie presented the community as one among other British descended settler populations: From amid the wattle of the Australian Bush, the fertile meadows of Maori land, from the grant forests of the North West, the golden grain fields of Canada, from the far corners of darkest Africa, the burning plains of India, from the culture of Western civilisation to the fastnesses of primeval man, where-ever Britain’s sons had dared, back came the ever-increasing response—‘For England, Home, and Glory’. Nor were Anglo-Indians a whit behind their more favoured brethren … For years the Community had clamoured for the right to serve King and Country as Anglo-Indian soldiers … Surely now their prayer would at last be heard…. (Ibid., p. 6)

But because the immediate offer by Abbott following Britain’s declaration of war upon Germany to embark upon a tour of India and to recruit at least a thousand men and a large contingent of professional nurses was initially rejected, many mixed-race men, especially those fair skinned enough to pass as Europeans, managed to enlist in British, Indian and Commonwealth regiments as army recruiters either deliberately or inadvertently looked the other way. Desperate for additional manpower, the British finally decided to sanction Anglo-Indian cavalry, artillery and infantry, comprising nineteen 2nd Lieutenants and 1090 NCOs and privates in 1916. By this point, the available pool of untapped men who had not already managed to enter military service by one means or another—a few having even travelled all the way to Britain in order to enlist—or were not held back as essential workers by the railways or their employers was small. The AIF thus drew more heavily on darker-skinned Anglo-Indians, especially in the South, who had not been able to pass as Europeans. And as recruiters complained, this, alongside rumours that Indian Christians and Goans were being admitted wholesale, suppressed recruitment efforts in north India, where the colour profile of the average Anglo-Indian was

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fairer. Colourism and classism within the mixed-race group was at play, inculcated by the dividing lines that the colonial state had drawn which rewarded racial passing. In any event, with superhuman efforts and genuine patriotic conviction for the imperial war effort, Anglo-Indian leaders across this wider geographic space of Anglo-India managed to supply the desired number and were soon being asked to furnish more. The contribution of Anglo-Indians from Burma to the AIF’s ‘Corps d’Elite’, the Anglo-Indian Battery, was particularly notable (ibid., p. 11). The Battery was deployed with British and Indian regiments as part of Indian Expeditionary Force D to the disastrous and costly Mesopotamian campaign. A secret British Report on the Siege of Kut, south of Baghdad, recounted how on Christmas Eve, facing a mass assault by the Turks, and under: …a very heavy artillery bombardment. The action at the fort was most bloody, and the way the men of the Bombay Artillery (Eurasians) handled their guns in its defence was worthy of the highest commendation. Twice the Turks gained a footing in in the north-east salient of the fort, but each time they were driven back with heavy slaughter. The attack on the fort continued throughout the day and night…. (CAB/37/159/42 1916, p. 4)

Charles Haswell Campagnac, the future leader of the mixed-race group in Burma, who helped to secure ‘a constant flow of recruits for the Volunteer Artillery Battery’, (Campagnac, p. 164) recounted in his memoir how they: …were the only Battery in the besieged City. Three of their guns were out of action by direct hits from the Turkish batteries. After that a Volunteer was called for to operate the remaining gun single handed. Every member of the Battery took a step forward and the choice fell upon the senior[most] … Sergeant Heales, who continued to load and fire the gun himself, until it too received a direct hit. For this … [he] received the award of [the Military Cross] … When the Turks had occupied the front line of trenches, and threatened to break into the City, the … Battery was asked whether they would be prepared to go into action with bayonets … They all agreed to do so, although, they had had little instruction in bayonet fighting … they charged into the trench and drove the Turks out … Anglo-Burmans fought on almost every front and in nearly all branches of the Army … the AngloBurman community only numbered twenty thousand men, women and children, yet they contributed a greater number of men to the fighting

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forces than any other British race. The Anglo-Burman girls also joined the nursing services and many of them were on the front line. (Ibid., pp. 161–163)

A terrible fate awaited the survivors of the Siege, as they ran out of food and supplies, relief forces sent to break through the Turkish lines failed to reach them, and they eventually surrendered to the Turks. The common soldiers—British, Anglo-Indian and Indian—were force marched across the desert with hardly any food or water and were cruelly ill-treated (some allegedly even raped) upon arrival by their Turkish captors and set to hard manual labour during three years of captivity. When the visibly mixed Lieutenant Colonel Henry Gidney of the Indian Medical Service, who had been running a Hospital for Indian troops, welcomed home the community’s veterans at the Bombay dockside he said: The only Anglo-Indians who went out at the outset, were the Volunteer Artillery … The[ir] deeds … are as glorious as they are undying. They breathe a spirit of true Loyalty and magnificent heroism. They fought bravely,—no matter what the odds—and they died bravely, for they represented the honour of the British Army … as well as the honour and name of Anglo-Indians. Only one third of these lads from Burmah are left! What finer record of service could we expect from them? (Robbie, p. 65)

Robbie had emphasised similar themes in describing how: many memories circle around the … [AIF,] memories of discredited claims of the fathers gloriously vindicated by the sons on the field … that the return of the victors to their native land could not fail to arouse the keenest interest. When it is remembered that this was the return of a Force which had been sanctioned only after years of endeavour and constant appeal … somewhat reluctantly and then only as an experiment, but which had gloriously justified that experiment by its deeds … and which was now returning to its homeland crowned with the laurels of victory, it will be seen that the occasion was unique in the history of the Community, a fact which the Anglo-­ Indians of Bombay, so ably led by Lt.-Col … Gidney, fully recognised … [with their] ‘welcome home’ to its honoured warriors … [and demonstrated by the] gratitude to the Community [of] the whole wide Empire … (Ibid., p. 61)

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Note that claims to British paternity are combined here with a recognition of India as Anglo-Indians native land and homeland. The ability to combine patriotic loyalty to the British Empire with devotion to India was not at this point unique to Anglo-Indians. The union of the two was an indissoluble bond to Anglo-Indians of Gidney’s generation. Anglo-Indian attempts to elevate themselves to a coequal status with the British as citizens of a common empire mirrored the prevailing approach of many Indian reformist nationalists at this time. Following his earlier efforts in raising and leading the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps in the Second Boer War, and despite his personal non-violent convictions, Gandhi was a primary exponent of this strategy. Two years after Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant had founded Home Rule Leagues in different parts of India, on the latter’s precept that England’s need is India’s opportunity, Gandhi was still offering his unconditional support to the imperial war effort, pledging in a letter to the Viceroy’s Secretary to become ‘your recruiting agent-in-chief’ and ‘rain men on you’ (Cited in Nanda 2001, ch. 8). As Faisal Devji (2020) has noted, Gandhi eschewed explicitly contractual quid pro quos, but he nonetheless expected freely given reciprocation through constitutional reform of the Empire’s relationship with its Indian subjects. Although Anglo-Indian efforts sought similar results in material terms, emotively, there was a far more significant psychological need for validation of their claims to identification with their British ‘fathers’. Anglo-Indian identity was twice recast in the crucible of two world wars, in which the great majority of the group were patriotic supporters of Britain and its empire. Wartime service tended to amplify their preexisting sense of identification with proclaimed British forebears and often acted to confirm their aspirations to inclusion within a broader imperial British status. This fundamental reality has been somewhat obscured by Anthony’s postwar reformulation of Anglo-Indian identity towards Indian nationalism, under his nested communal nationalist formula—Indian ‘by nationality but Anglo-Indian by Community’ (Anthony 2007, p. 416), and the continued divergent evolutions of Anglo-Indian identities within the postcolonial diaspora. Though a nascent form of what Alison Blunt (2005, pp. 24, 52) has described as Gidney’s dualism of combined loyalty to Britain as Fatherland and India as Motherland is already in evidence during WWI, as with its successor, the war’s immediate aftermath produced a heightened sense of identification with Britain by validating deeply held and emotive conceptions of self. Thus, Gidney’s dockside speech also spoke of:

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We Anglo-Indians of India and Burmah … as a valuable Military asset to the King’s Forces in the British Dominions … a hall mark … earned long ago by our forefathers, in undying fame of gallant deeds performed … when the Anglo-Indians fought shoulder to shoulder with the Britisher and helped to quell the Mutiny. History is only repeating itself; but the interval from then to now, has been marked by many vicissitudes and trials for us … The Chief of these, and the one we have most keenly hitherto felt has been that the doors of the British Army were closed to us. We fought for recognition; we begged to be allowed to enlist …. Our Birthright, our Just Dues … for are we not sons of Britishers, and as such have we not every right to defend our country and serve our King? We have! This cannot be questioned again, even by ‘New India’ after the way in which you men, as our representatives, have fought for our King and country, and for the fair name of Anglo-­ India … We have proved beyond doubt that we are worthy sons of a great Empire … that we are, what we rightly and proudly claim to be: ‘Chips of[f] the old block’, ‘Sons of the old Brigade’. … Many of you left as untried lads; you return as tried and proven sons of India …. (Robbie, pp. 63–5)

For Gidney, there is no contradiction here. He anticipated no great change in India’s connection to Britain, even if ‘Home Rule’ or Swaraj were to be achieved in the limited sense that Besant and Gandhi then advocated. Claiming to be ‘sons of Britishers’ as well as ‘proven sons of India’ was significantly different in tone to the Imperial Anglo-Indian Association’s President J. R. Wallace’s earlier claim on behalf of the mixed: ‘Britishers we are and Britishers we ever must be. Once we relinquish this name (Anglo-Indian) and permit ourselves to be styled “Eurasians” or “Statutory Natives of India” we become estranged from our proud heritage as Britishers’ (Dover 1937, p. 139). Anthony (p. 121) would later claim of his political mentor that: Gidney was a progressive leader in the context of the then obtaining attitudes and complexes of the Community. By persons such as Abbott and [Herbert] Stark he was constantly accused of sacrificing the heritage of the Community … Gidney’s policies certainly represented a striking advance on the position taken up by Anglo-Indian leaders who preceded him. He was unqualified in his emphasis that the Anglo-Indians are nationals of India and could only find their proper place if they moved with and accepted the other peoples of India without the inhibitions and complexes of the past. Gidney was ahead of the hard core of Anglo-Indian thinking. Yet he could not go too far ahead for fear of being misunderstood and misrepresented in his own Community.

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Anthony’s language here is euphemistic. The ‘inhibitions and complexes’ to which he alluded related to race, internal colourism, an overwhelming orientation towards Britain and a corresponding alienation from and othering of Indians and things Indian. For most members of the group, almost right up to independence, these factors were all at play, and could not suddenly be wished away by a change of strategy and emphasis at the top by its leaders, including Anthony himself. His own attempts to more dramatically reorient Anglo-Indian identity, which deployed the emotive ‘betrayal’ narrative of his political history-cum-memoir, triggered colossal resistance, and even what, in the context of prevailing Anglo-­ Indian attitudes of the time, was the defamatory (and false) claim that Anthony himself was a Goan or Indian Christian passing as an Anglo-­ Indian. The mellowing of attitudes over these bitter divisions among emigres to Britain and Australia has buried much of this history from subsequent scholars who substantially relied upon interviews conducted at a great distance of time from the identities prevalent among Anglo-Indians in the 1940s and 1950s who had been old enough to experience the Raj and WWII as adults (Almeida 2017).

Collective Boundary Blurring and Individual Modes of Racial Passing It must also be recognised that it was not only whilst consciously racially passing that many Anglo-Indians in the late colonial period, more conservative than Gidney, viewed themselves as British or European, and attempted to return themselves as such to colonial censors, or to join European Associations. When the Empire League, of which Gidney had been the Bombay President branch before displacing Abbott as president-­ in-­chief, had decided to change its name to the Anglo-Indian Association at its 1918–1919 Annual Conference in Allahabad, the organisation’s Domiciled European members objected to their exclusion from its new title and managed to pass by a narrow majority a resolution that the new name should be the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Association (Anglo-Indian Review, June 1928, pp. 2–3). The endless debates over the ‘Domiciled European’ category, and Gidney as well as Anthony’s attempts to do away with it, were a product of this persisting reality. During Gidney’s predominant leadership of Anglo-India, he caused much offence by making jokes about ‘“Albino” Anglo-Indians … “Domestic

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Occurrences” and … “Rear-Rank Europeans”’ (Anthony, p. 117). In the Anglo-Indian Review (June 1928, p. 2), which was by now under Gidney’s personal editorial control, it was argued that: There are very few families who have lived in India for two or three generations … who have not intermarried into Anglo-Indian families chiefly of the ‘albino’ variety, and 95 per cent of these people, who, spend their lives pretending to be pure Europeans are Anglo-Indians and have mixed blood, but for obvious reasons they are anxious to remain aloof from their darker brothers. There are thousands of such Anglo-Indians masquerading under the euphonious name of ‘Domiciled European’, squeezing into clubs from which, if their coloured relations were known, they would be excluded … We have seen enough and known enough of the antecedents of many of these … to be able to put most of them to utter shame.

Obviously, this kind of passing was structurally incentivised by better pay and promotion prospects in colonial service, and a marginally improved social status, for as Buettner observes to colonial Britons the difference between Anglo-Indians and Domiciled Europeans, referred to pejoratively in colonial slang as ‘8 annas or 15 annas’ (respectively) of the full 16 making up a rupee, ‘amounted to the same small change’ (Buettner 2004, p.  74). One self-proclaimed Domiciled European of Danish paternal ancestry was Roy Nissen (1905–2002). After migrating to the UK, he explained to an interviewer that 90% of his friends and most of his girlfriends had been ‘Eurasians and we … didn’t consider ourselves any … [different; there wasn’t] any difference between us at all really … Of course they would never admit that we were a Domiciled European … [To them] We were fair Anglo-Indians’ (MSS EUR R189, Nissen 1989) (Fig. 4.2). But whether or not his family were actually mixed, claiming a Domiciled European status had enabled his sister, a nurse and sanatorium matron in Karachi who had been ‘treated as dirt’ by her British colleagues of the superordinate ‘Queen Alexandra’ nursing service, to marry a newly arrived British ‘junior clerk with royal insurance’, move to Calcutta, join ‘all the [right] clubs’, and, as she claimed to her brother, to dance with the Governor of Bengal at a Ball held at Government House (Ibid.). Movement generally facilitated passing, as in the case of another AngloIndian nurse. Born in a Railway Colony in South India in 1906, Irene Green’s railwayman father could not afford to send her to a Hill School of the kind attended by more successful Anglo-Indians, so she attended the

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Fig. 4.2  The Friis Browne Family—varied complexions among sisters. (Courtesy of Rebecca Calderon)

local railway school. She thus came from the opposite end of the internally stratified socioracial class spectrum of the broader ‘domiciled community’ from the Nissens. And when her Scottish-descended father died in 1923, her Luso-Indian mother could no longer afford to educate her beyond primary level. She did her best to educate her by reading the Bible, and though her education was far below the usual requirement, she managed to be accepted by the prestigious St. George’s Hospital in Bombay. Her mother begged some British officer’s wives for whom she had made hats to give her their old tennis dresses with which she made her daughter’s first nursing uniform (MSS EUR T29, Mrs. Edwards 1973, p. 11). That she arrived in a horse Tonga was an immediate indication that she was not socially the right sort, but as Green recounted: Matron, however, was very kind. She decided to give me a chance. I had to struggle with the education … I had to study harder than most of the

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nurses … I never went out. My head was stuck in a book and … they called me a blue stocking … I was teased a lot because I was so naive, brought up up-country, never having moved out of the railway colony and garrison stations. I’d never been to a big, big place … like Bombay or Calcutta or Delhi in my life and I was bewildered … I was frightened to enter a lift. I’d never seen a lift before … I did not know how use a telephone. I was terrified of a telephone. Going into the men’s ward, I wanted to keep my eyes down all the time because I’d never seen men in pajamas. (Ibid., p. 12–13)

In addition to her diligent determination she had one thing going for her—she looked white. As she recalled, at St. George’s, which was the main European hospital in Bombay: …very very few … [of our nurses] were coloured … The majority … were like myself, what we called white Anglo-Indians. About a dozen or so were really English girls … The Anglo-Indians were accepted, generally in large numbers, if they were white or off-white or beige coloured … Indian Christians came in, usually in their master’s trousers, pants and shirts, and they called themselves Anglo-Indians. Our doctors, who were themselves Anglo-Indians in the major part, were not able to draw a line. It was a difficult situation and so these Indians were really accepted as Anglo-Indians or Eurasians. (Ibid., pp. 2/2–3)

In 1928 in reply to a question in the Bombay Legislative Council (21 February, p. 113), the Indian Minister of Education reported that across the hospitals under the Bombay Presidency’s expansive jurisdiction, including the Civil Hospital, Karachi, and the European General Hospital at Aden, the ‘nurses employed in the administrative grades as matrons and sisters in charge of wards, operation theatres, and out-patients’ included 87 ‘Europeans and Anglo-Indians’, 15 ‘Indian Christians’ and 27 ‘Other Indians’. Green’s second great leap was to what is now Pakistan: …by sheer accident, I was lucky enough to get a job as a Nursing Sister on the North West Frontier … which was not really intended for an Anglo Indian girl but because the Matron was either short of staff or because I sent a photograph which showed me as near white … I was given this job … I was the only … Anglo-Indian … The others were all English Sisters, and I had an awful lot to learn from them. I had to learn to speak correctly … to lose my chichi accent … something peculiar to Anglo-Indians. The Welsh speak something like that … I have often been mistaken in this country [the U.K.] for a Welshwoman … in India in those days it was a terrible handicap,

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especially in the Mess. I had to learn not to offer my hand. I had to learn not to say ‘Pleased to meet you’. I had to learn to just bow and to say ‘How do you do’? I had to learn to say ‘Goodbye’ and not ‘Cheerio and chin-chin’. These were all Anglo-Indian sayings … I had to learn a lot. I had to learn a new way of speaking. Manners. (Edwards, pp. 2, 2/12–13)

By gradually adapting herself, Green was able to pass and gain acceptance from her older British colleagues. But when she tried to help a fellow Anglo-Indian named Celia who ‘was white with blue eyes’ (Edwards, p. 4/1) to join the colonial club of which she and her fellow nursing sisters were automatic members, the fact that Celia’s parents were living in Peshawar meant that she was: …known to be Anglo-Indian … she knew I used to go to the club, because I used to talk about the parties there, the tennis, the dances, and she wanted to join … and I asked a … lady doctor who had influence … to try and get Celia in, and she told me I don’t think we’ll succeed it’s no use trying, because everybody round here knows Celia is an Anglo-Indian. I told this lady doctor, well so am I, she said yes, but people don’t know it here, she said, you have passed, in the crowd she said, but Celia won’t, so therefore this crowd—this club was tabboo. [sic] … I—we [Anglo-Indians] were not bitter about this … we accepted it because this bar, not only the colour bar, but the class bar, cut right across India, we as Anglo-Indians, did not allow the Indians into our institutes, we were allowed to—as members of the corporals clubs—corporals messes, even some sergeants messes, allowed Anglo-­ Indians, other sergeants messes did not allow Anglo-Indians, we knew that the … [burrah] club, that is the club for officers was absolutely out of [the] question … not only for Anglo-Indians, but for all white people who were not officers, therefore this bar was accepted. (ibid.)

Green went on to marry a British man, become Mrs. Edwards and emigrate to the UK. Her testimony was shaped not only by her own life experience and trajectory through successful passing but by what she felt to have been the general aspiration of any young Anglo-Indian girl of her day: As Anglo-Indians in our railway community … an unwritten rule was for the girls to try and marry … the British soldier, the idea was … to improve the strain, so our aim was to marry British soldiers, not to marry Anglo-Indian men …when we were about 14 or 15, we started playing Tennis in the railway institute … We went to dances, our greatest ambition then, was to dance with British soldiers and to marry British soldiers. That was the aim

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and height of an Anglo Indian girl, to marry a British soldier. She never danced with an Anglo Indian man if she could help it. She preferred to dance with the soldier. Very often, they married soldiers, sometimes even sargeants [sic] never above that … (Edwards, pp. 2–3, 4/3)

This may appear as an uncomfortable confirmation of racialised tropes about mixed-race women as sexual predators seeking to ensnare unwitting British men, but the desire to counter negative stereotypes should not lead us to deny facts for which there is abundant evidence from a variety of sources. The complaints of Anglo-Indian and domiciled men at the time are among these (Anglo-Indian Review, X’Mas 1930, pp.  12–13; September 1944, p. 3; December 1944, p. 35), though harsh criticism of the effective exit of ‘their’ women is in keeping with broader patriarchal proprietorial attempts to police women’s options and the boundaries between groups in other settings, such as, for example, in the film Mississippi Masala (1991).

Reflections on the Lost Identities of a Receding Past What Green’s interview, transcribed in 1973, much closer to the end of empire reveals is an unreconstructed earlier stage of identity among a significant body of Anglo-Indians raised during the late colonial period: Well of course, naturally we thought the British Raj was grand because, we considered we were British, we were brought up in the British way of life, we spoke English from our birth … Britain was something, it was ou[r] … home, we talked about it … as home, though we’d never seen it, it was home to us. The British flag, the Union Jack meant something to us. I can remember once sitting on a platform in Mau … and a whole group of … little boys … [were] sitting and talking and one said to the other: Do you see that flag up there? You could just see the Fort in the distance with … the Union Jack flying … and this little fellow said: Do you know there are a lot of people who are je[alous] … of that. Like they want to see that flag come down … But that flag will never come down and I in my foolishness … I agreed with them … None of us, none of the anglo indian [sic] community … except those [English] high ups knew that after … World War two the British Raj was going to … come to an end. We were proud of being British, when we heard God Save the King my father … even away in the distance, in our own home, he stood up and we had to stand with him. This

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is what we thought of the British Raj and it came as a shock to us when it ended. It not only came as a shock, to us, but it was the end of our world, because now we did not know where we were … were we Indians or were we British or what? (Edwards, pp. 6/10–11)

If we allow Anthony’s reformulation of Anglo-Indian identity or later oral history sources to colour our view of this earlier period, we are in danger of forgetting how widespread and heartfelt were identities like Green’s. In answer to her interviewer’s question about there being a ‘strong sense of betrayal’ among Anglo-Indians, of the British having ‘let down’ Anglo-Indians [sic.], she replied: Yes, there was … some … anglo Indians, [sic] thought that more could have been done for them. Those who could not afford to get away, who could not afford the passage to get away thought that more time should have been given, that perhaps they should have been helped to get away to England. Others like myself, who had married an Englishman[,] well I was alright, I had the British citizenship, I was able to get away but there were lots of anglo indian women and men who had to stay there, are still there being treated badly being hounded from post to post … because it is India, they want it for their own people so these anglo Indians are being pushed lower and lower and lower down the scale. (Edwards, p. 6/11)

Another interviewee, Eugene Pierce (MSS EUR T52 1973), despite his own emigration to Britain, carried with him feelings of bitterness alongside an older unreconstructed imperial Anglo-Indian identity that would now be unfathomable to Anglo-Indians in modern India: …all the key positions in the country’s arterial services were in the hands of loyal Anglo-Indians who, under British administration, formed the backbone of such services. This practically precluded any kind of organised industrial action insofar as these vital services were concerned. Though the Anglo-Indians were shamefully abandoned by the British on granting Independence to India … [Vallabhai] Patel … was reported as expressing the wish to see every Anglo-Indian carrying a beggar’s bowl. He did not live to see it. But from the accounts received I understand there are to be seen in the back streets and chawbs of India’s large cities pale-faced human ‘ghosts’ living in dire poverty. They are the vestiges of a white race, witnesses to the past presence of proud and powerful British rulers who made a hasty withdrawal leaving these their blood brothers and sisters to languish and die in the land they and their ancestors served the British so well. Indeed the day

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of reckoning is at hand, and heavy will be the price that a degenerate, decadent Britain will ultimately have to pay for the betrayal of her own people both abroad and at home. (Ibid., ‘Statement’, front matter)

Pierce’s impassioned Statement was made around 1972–1973 when such feelings were still raw. But anger tends to cool with time as people age, often mellowing as they reflect on their lives and experiences. Naturally, the identities of Anglo-Indians in various parts of the diaspora have continued to evolve over time, reformulating themselves in adaptation to changing attitudes in the divergent settings where today’s Anglo-­ Indians have made their various homes. It is therefore not altogether unsurprising that there was apparently no sign of such sentiments in the twenty-first-century interviews that informed Rochelle Almeida’s (2017) book on Britain’s Anglo-Indians: The Invisibility of Assimilation. But it is also evident that works that rely heavily on oral history face a selection bias problem in the Anglo-Indian case, which results from the propensity towards racial passing among the group. There are many cases now emerging in the vein of Alastair McGowan’s journey of discovery for the BBC (One) series Who Do You Think You Are following his father’s death, in which he confirmed his suspicions that he had Indian blood, despite his father (listed as ‘Anglo-Indian’ on his birth certificate) having ‘always vehemently denied it, explaining away the colouring by claiming Portuguese blood long ago’. As one Anglo-Indian who had migrated to Britain in 1960 told the BBC (Radio 4 FM 1997): I’m ashamed of the Anglo-Indian race, because they don’t want to say who they are. A lot of them got Indian blood in them … Because they don’t want to be Indian. They want to be British … I’m not saying all Anglo-Indians, humph, God, I’ll fight for my her[itage] … I’m Anglo-Indian.

Naturally, it is impracticable to get people who have themselves racially passed and sought to deny their Indian origins to sit down for an interview, and thus the pool of interviewees can never be a representative sample. The picture must be imaginatively reconstructed from a wider array of sources. Historical precedents may be somewhat helpful, as in 1930 when J.  S. Turner wrote: ‘we find many of our people actually ashamed to acknowledge themselves Anglo-Indians, and only too ready to pose as Britishers, Americans, Russians and even Mexicans—anything but Anglo-­ Indians’ (Anglo-Indian Review, May 1930, p. 19).

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During the Raj, wherever possible, many among the mixed preferred to claim to be British or European. One of the key arenas for the articulation of such status and category claims was the colonial census of India, which included Burma up to 1931, prior to its constitutional separation in 1937. This was consequential to the weightage of representation in the colonial legislative councils, and thus the association did its utmost to persuade Anglo-Indians that their declarations would remain confidential and would not affect their position in other spheres of life, such as the Raj’s discriminatory socioracial employment hierarchy. Across this wider Indian Empire all mixed-race people of European paternal descent were classed as Eurasians up to 1911, when they were collectively redesignated as Anglo-­ Indians for that year’s census. The name change had been the product of agitation within the group and petitions to the colonial state since at least the 1880s, echoing concerns about naming earlier in the nineteenth century when internal debates had divided the nascent community over whether they should be known as East Indians, Eurasians or Indo-Britons in place of the egregiously offensive term half-castes. Due to the rise of so-called scientific racism in the late nineteenth century, Eurasian had come to acquire many of the same negative racialised connotations as half-caste, although it continued to have its proponents, owing to its capacity to encompass a wider pan-Eurasian collectivity with other mixed-race offspring of the European empires in Asia, most notably the socialist polymath Cedric Dover, and his one-time emulator and fellow author of pan-Eurasianist tracts, Kenneth Wallace. Anglo-Indian asserted in itself a connection to Britain or England, and in comparison with Eurasian, it could be used to attempt to blur the boundaries between mixedness and Britishness. This was certainly how Dover and Wallace saw it, even though the socialist-leaning Wallace ultimately accepted defeat over the naming issue and joined Gidney in prioritising attempts to confront the community’s unemployment problems. This turned Wallace (1947) from a political opponent of Gidney into his committed deputy and later biographer. Had the mixed-race group in India and Burma retained the designation Eurasian, then there would have been less impetus for the promulgation of categories which emerged and were sometimes used, not only Anglo-Burman and Anglo-Indian but also Anglo-Malayan and Anglo-Chinese (though in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore Eurasian remained the primary term).

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From Anglo-India to Anglo-Burma In Burma between 1911 and 1937 Anglo-Indian was the official category to refer to all mixed-race claimants to European paternal descent, and as in India, the omission of any explicit reference to Asian ancestry in the definition of the term was consequential. First it facilitated boundary-­ blurring strategies (see Wimmer, 2013) between the recognisably mixed, the supposedly unmixed (fair skinned ‘pass whites’) and colonial Britons, by allowing those who denied having any Asian blood to embrace the term. And second it had the potential to ultimately include those claiming to be ‘pure’ Europeans domiciled in India or Burma, whose Asiatic domicile would prove critical to their claims to employment by the colonial state as ‘Statutory Natives’ (officially exempted from processes of Indianisation and Burmanisation of their jobs). It also laid the basis for the British assertion that mixed peoples were imperial subjects and future citizens of the postcolonial states of Burma, India and Pakistan. The cultural orientation of Anglos and the preferential treatment they had enjoyed in their intermediate rungs of colonial state and railway employment often caused Asian nationalists to contest the assertion that they could be conationals, however, at least while they continued to proclaim their loyalty to the imperial power and maintain their westernised Anglophone culture. The Burma volume of the Census of India for 1921 (Volume X: Burma, p. 215), the second to be carried out under the new designation, explained: The term Anglo-Indian … presents difficulties because it is used in different senses even officially. For instance, persons who are Anglo-Indians according to the ordinary usage of the word may have been (at the time of the census) European British subjects for the Criminal Procedure Code, and some are Europeans according to the recently introduced election-rules of Burma; while under these same rules some of pure European descent are Anglo-Indians. For the purposes of the census an Anglo-Indian was defined as a person who is partly of European and partly of Burmese or Indian descent.

Thus, the Anglo-Indian census and constitutional category in Burma included those who were in fact ethnically Anglo-Burman within its rubric up to the enactment of the 1935 Act in 1937. The censors were sensitive to the varying ways in which mixed-race people in Burma sought to self-­ identify, even whilst wishing to correct what were perceived to be their erroneous claims. Advice was given on how to spot an Anglo-Indian falsely claiming ‘to be English’ by looking for clues like occupation, religious

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denomination and place of birth (Ibid., p. 207). Supplementary instructions given to all supervisors helped ‘them to guide enumerators and correct their records’ (Ibid., p. 206). If a suspect individual claimed that their ‘race’ was ‘British’ or ‘European’, rather than directly challenge the assertion, enumerators were to ask them to specify whether by this they meant ‘English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh or Anglo-Indian’, or ‘Anglo-Indian or French or Italian, etc.’, implying that Anglo-Indian was one of several nested categories within a British or European racial identity, and thereby offering guiding direction or potential validation to self-perceptions among the mixed upon this point. At the same time, they were emphatically told ‘not [to] write British … [or] European’ (Original emphasis; ibid.). In India, Gidney’s Association’s Anglo-Indian Review and Railway Union Journal (January 1931, p. 26) would later carry slogans like: Your future is at stake. Experience has shown that numbers are important in the changing India. You gain nothing by returning yourself as a European and gain everything by returning as an Anglo-Indian. Do so in the 1931 census and so help your leaders in their efforts for the community.

In Burma the man who would become predominant as the leader of the mixed after DuBern was the aforementioned C. H. Campagnac (2011, p. 5), himself an ethnic Anglo-Indian, of French paternal descent whose grandfather (also Charles Campagnac) had received ‘the “Defence of Lucknow” medal’ for his role in ‘the Indian Mutiny’, or Great Rebellion of 1857. Campagnac’s father, Alexander George, attended the Doveton College (originally the Parental Academic Institution, established by William Ricketts and other key figures from the mixed-race group in 1823—Calcutta Review, vol. 24, Calcutta, January–June 1855, pp.  303–304) and joined the Burma Educational Service, serving as ‘Headmaster of the government High Schools in Akyab, Moulmein, and lastly at Bassein’ (Campagnac, p.  7). Campagnac’s mother was Emily Donovan, the Catholic daughter of an Irishman, who consented to marry his ‘father in a Protestant Church’ (Ibid., p.  8). From their portraits Campagnac’s father could have passed as European, whilst his mother’s complexion was obviously mixed (Ibid., pp. 12, 18). Campagnac himself was born in Calcutta, where his grandfather was still living and being friendly with a good doctor there, insisted that it would be safer for his daughter-in-­law to ‘be confined’ under his care (Ibid., p. 8). As a young child he was sent to study in Darjeeling after his mother died, before

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spending five years of his childhood in Akyab in Burma. When his stepmother also died, Campagnac’s father took him and his sister to England. Onboard ship the English children called them ‘darkies’ (Ibid., p. 16). The young Campagnac was educated at ‘Taunton School … originally called the “West of England Dissenters’ College”’ (Ibid., p. 29). The aim was for him ‘to study for the Imperial Forestry Service’, though his short-­ sightedness blocked this avenue, and the ‘Imperial Telegraph Service’ was suggested, which his father ‘considered to be very inferior’, likely based on his own familiarity with the domiciled men who occupied its subordinate ‘uncovenanted’ provincial branches in India and Burma (Ibid., pp. 43–44). His father therefore sent a letter to the school’s headmaster asking for his son to be enrolled ‘at the Middle Temple’ to study for the Bar exams (Ibid., p.  44). This set him on the same path to becoming a British-­ qualified barrister, like Anthony, Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru and so many other prominent figures on the colonial political scene. After a brief interlude in Paris, Campagnac ‘returned to Burma … [with] only about 50 rupees in hand’, (Ibid., p. 77) enrolled at the Bar, and went on to make a successful career for himself, both as a practicing lawyer and a future Mayor of Rangoon. There were a great many Anglo-Indians who spent parts of their career in Burma, for whom it was not thought of much differently than Poona, Bangalore or Lahore; merely one almost interchangeable posting among others. This was true for Colonel Florence Watkins (2010) of the Indian Military Nursing Service who recalled of her own father: … oh my, he roamed all over the place … I still remember we were, we were little things, 4 and 5 … when he was posted from Igatpuri to Burma … we all had to run with him wherever he went … We had an ayah, we had a bearer, and we had a cook … and they all came with us to Burma, and they all came back [to India] with us.

Watkin’s father went on to serve as private secretary to Anthony despite being much his senior in age. There is not enough space here to recapitulate Watkin’s own story that led her towards a greater identification with India, but readers should refer to an earlier IJAIS article (Charlton-Stevens 2016) as a counterpoint to the kind of identity articulated by Green. For Campagnac, however, Burma was no temporary port of call. He remembered his early childhood years in Akyab as the happiest of his life, and felt that he was coming ‘home’, despite having been born in Calcutta to

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ethnically Anglo-Indian parents. There are few sources to attempt to disaggregate ethnic Anglo-Indians and ethnic Anglo-Burmans from one another numerically, but it may be plausibly postulated that most of the mixed-race group in Burma were Anglo-Indians who had come to Burma, as had other Indian communities, to work, particularly on the railways. Alongside them where ethnic Anglo-Burmans, most of whom were the offspring of more recent interracial unions between British men and local women. Campagnac’s (p.  171) wife’s Burmese mother claimed descent from the penultimate Burmese monarch, Mindon Min. In his memoirs The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma, Campagnac (pp. 170–171) argued: In Burma things were entirely different. Most of the Anglo-Burmans in Burma were of the first generation, that is, by English fathers and Burmese mothers. There is no caste system … and a Burmese woman is free to marry whom she chooses and when she does marry a European, she does not become cut off from her own people. The fathers of Anglo-Burmans were for the most part officials from the English Civil Service. More than one Governor and several Judges in Burma had children by Burmese women and these children in nearly every case bore the names of their fathers. A Burmese woman who lives with a man regards herself as being his wife, as she undoubtedly is under Buddhist Law. For a woman to be validly married in Burma, it is not necessary that there should be any wedding ceremony. According to Buddhist Law, if a man and woman live together, as man and wife and ‘eat out of the same pot’ and are regarded by their neighbours as man and wife, they are lawfully married … The children of these unions used to accompany their mothers to Pagodas and take part in celebrating Buddhist feast days. Many of the girls wore Burmese costume and often visited their mother’s villages, where they resided with their Burmese relatives … My wife’s aunts lived in a little village near Kyauktaga … [We] often visited … [them and her] cousins and when they came to Rangoon, they always stayed with us.

Despite Campagnac, as we shall see, having strong political reasons to emphasise and perhaps even exaggerate the distinctiveness of the mixed-­ race experience in Burma, much of what he says here is persuasive. It fits with Dorothy McMenamin’s (2019) doctoral thesis assertions that Islam coloured a different and more tolerant attitude to racial mixing and its offspring in the north-west (which would form the core of the future Pakistan) than Hindu practices of caste endogamy and outcasting of

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converts to other religions. Green’s descriptions of treating Afridi tribal men and their joking threats to kidnap her and put her in a burkah signal that Muslim society in the borderlands adjoining Afghanistan was, however, profoundly patriarchal. By contrast to the position of Muslim and Hindu women, Burmese Buddhist attitudes were comparatively enlightened in respect of women’s rights to autonomy, property, marriage and divorce. As Campagnac suggests Buddhist customary law enabled women to marry and subsequently divorce British partners on their own terms, without the loss of status this would have entailed, were it even possible, for most women in South Asia. Burmese attitudes could not but affect colonial British attitudes to some degree. This is not to say that colonial Britons in Burma were entirely free of the racial and class prejudices towards the mixed prevalent among their compatriots in the rest of the Indian Empire. But it did mean that cohabitations and customary marriages to local women were still ongoing among a wider cross-section of British men. In India, by the late colonial period, it was typically only working-class British men, such as demobilised soldiers and imported railway workers, who were likely to marry into the domiciled community; it was upcountry planters, far away from the colonial urban centres, who might still be fathering children with local or mixed-race women. These kinds of colonial Britons, and to a lesser degree missionaries, were themselves much looked down upon within the elaborately gradated class structure of colonial British society, which was itself distinct from how class operated in Britain. Campagnac’s description of a better class of British men openly entering relationships with local or mixed-race women had been true in India back in the early nineteenth century, but had become socially unacceptable, and costly to one’s employment prospects, long before Kipling published his cautionary short story Kidnapped on that theme in 1887. Thus, differences in social and racial attitudes among the colonial British population in Burma were also partly attributable to the fact that Burma was a newer territorial acquisition, and distinctive localised prejudices had not had as much time to develop as in more conservative and longstanding colonial British urban centres like Calcutta. If the more tolerant picture of local and colonial attitudes in Burma appears irreconcilable with the inter-­ ethnic violence which occurred during WWII and the aftermath of Burmese independence, it should be remembered that all but a sliver of eastern India escaped from ground warfare and Japanese military occupation. As Timothy Snyder (2015) has amply demonstrated in Black Earth:

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The Holocaust as History and Warning, the creation of stateless zones, alternating military occupations and the entire breakdown of the civil and administrative machinery of the state, placed minorities in the most dangerous and vulnerable position. These analytical insights are readily transferable to how many Burmese would have perceived their position in between the occupying forces of British and Japanese imperialism. Snyder’s insight might also offer lessons on the abdication of state authority by the British colonial state and the imperial government in London that chose to withdraw troops during the widespread communal massacres of Partition.

Personal, Political and Constitutional Ruptures In 1918, DuBern asked Campagnac (pp. 171–172) ‘to stand for election as a Councillor [sic] to the Rangoon Municipality, afterwards the Corporation of Rangoon’, but then failed to follow through in sponsoring Campagnac as a candidate of the Anglo-Indian Empire League, causing him to seek out his own independent base of support. As he was also running in ‘a combined electorate of European[s], Anglo-Indians, Armenians, Parsees and Jews’, Campagnac’s political experience began on an intercommunal and cosmopolitan basis. This contrasted with Gidney, who first became the president of the Bombay Branch of the Empire League before it was rebranded as the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Association, All-India and Burma, and then successfully challenged and displaced Abbott as the president-in-chief, replacing him as the community’s nominated representative in the Central Legislative Assembly. Though Gidney would later join other Indian Empire loyalists, particularly Muslim and Punjabi landowners, to form a cross-communal Unionist Party in the Assembly, Gidney’s political beginnings were very much a domestic ‘communal’ Anglo-Indian affair, characterised by the bitter feud between him and Abbot, internal Anglo-Indian support-building and his position as one of the Viceroy’s nominated minority representatives. Until January 1933, Gidney’s Association proudly listed a ‘Burma (affiliated)’ provincial branch in Rangoon, and three ‘(Burma Affiliated)’ district branches in Mandalay, Maymyo and Toungoo (Anglo-Indian Review, January 1933, p. 2) (Fig. 4.3). By the next month’s issue they had all disappeared from its list, marking the end of its effective claims to represent the mixed across India and Burma (Ibid., February 1933, p. 2).

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Fig. 4.3  Map of the 88 branches of Gidney’s Association across the Indian Empire in 1929, including four affiliated Burma branches (Anglo-Indian Review, November 1929, p. 22)

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In 1930, the Anglo-Indian Review (April, p. 8) emphasised how the annual report of its Mandalay Branch revealed ‘how closely identical the interests of the community in Burma are to the community in India … Indeed but for certain Provincial matters the report … might easily be taken as a report of the All-India Association for the year under review’. However, in writing up the Rangoon Branch’s Report, it was compelled to begin with the admission that: It is seldom that anything is to be found in the pages of this informative and interesting Journal of the doings of our cousins in Golden Burma. In strength and in finance there has been steady progress with the loyal co-­ operation from the Branches at Maymyo, Mandalay and Toungoo. The unification of the two organizations in Burma, so desirable and essential to our cause appear to be steadily approaching accomplishment if the existing friendless of the leaders on both sides can be accepted as sincere, and those who selfishly sit on the fence would only join hands for the common good. Two recruiting Meetings were held during the month of February at Malagon and Insein respectively. Both Railway centres, a few miles from Rangoon. The Railway men here have yet to know and realize all that has been and is being done by their doughty champion Col. Gidney in tireless vigil for their interests. (Ibid., p. 32)

At the same time, the Rangoon Branch celebrated the election of ‘Mr. S. H. Wellington, M.L.C.’ as the new president, noting he was ‘an ardent separatist from India and equally zealous for unity in Burma’, seemingly unaware of what Burma’s constitutional separation from India was likely to imply for Anglo-Indian unity across a newly erected border (Ibid.). Far from moving towards a new joining of hands, the factions in Burma were already being driven apart. That same year witnessed litigation in the Rangoon High Court between Gidney and the ‘Provisional Committee’ of a new rival ‘Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Federation (Burma)’ headed by Campagnac, related to Gidney’s prior visit to Rangoon in January 1927 (H.A.J. Gidney vs. Anglo Indian and Domiciled European Association et al., Rangoon High Court 1930). Rather than being a breakaway Burmese movement, this reflected the formation of many similar Federations in India among those who had sided with Abbott against Gidney and were resisting his claims to represent Anglo-Indians in general, the subtext being that Gidney was too pro-Indian by comparison to his predecessor. The use of the term ‘Federation’ no doubt sought to evoke the earlier success of the wartime federation under Abbott between

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the Empire League and the Anglo-Indian Associations. The battle had become so bitter that Abbott went so far as to write to the editor of the Indian Daily Telegraph that Gidney and his committee had ‘gone out of their way to make accusations against me, falsely … [and] I therefore thirst for their blood’ (Legislative Department, February 1923, Abbott to the Editor, Indian Daily Telegraph, p. 5). The formation of a rival organisation to what was now Gidney’s Association was thus not a sign of the mixed in Burma diverging from the general pattern of political AngloIndia. Yet like South India, where an independent Southern Association held out against amalgamating with Gidney’s organisation, Burma was a power base which could be more easily detached from the rest of AngloIndia. According to Campagnac, Gidney had attended the Provisional Committee’s meeting to attempt: …to persuade the members of the proposed Burma ‘Federation’ to join the All India ‘Association’. …[But] was disappointed at the Provisional Committee’s reception of his advice, and … left … a very sad man … [convinced] that it must now be a war to [the] death. (Rangoon High Court 1930)

The insults mounted on both sides. The Burma Chronicle, ‘an organ of the Burma Branch of the Association’, was accused of being: a ‘petty and pitiable production of a dying and enfeebled body’; a ‘hectic publication’ freely distributed ‘at the expense of communal funds’; and ‘an excellent example of rag journalism’ (Cited in ibid.). Its ‘many misstatements and inexactitudes couched in immoderate language’ and its ‘irresponsible and scurrilous utterances’ exemplifying its ‘inglorious function of chronic abuse’ (Cited in ibid.). The battle also played out in the Rangoon Times in which Gidney apparently charged Campagnac, as ‘President of the so-­ called Federation’ with overestimating ‘his position in the community’ and magnifying ‘the influence he thought he wielded, and of deliberately choosing ‘to separate himself from the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Association and to create an antagonistic anti-association body’ (Cited in ibid.). Gidney’s letter went on: While on a short visit to Burma … I was invited by Mr. Campagnac to meet his council and which I naturally thought would be a representative gathering of the members of the Federation, to discuss the ways and means of rapprochement between the Burma Federation and the Association. I was

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therefore not a little surprised to find present about 10 men including the President and Secretary three or four telegraphists whose only justification for being present appeared to be to tear me to pieces about an editorial that had appeared in the columns of the Anglo-Indian Review, two or three Customs men, three or four railway subordinates, about six ladies, two or three with babies in their laps, about 10 girls from 5 to 15 years of age and about 10 boys of similar ages. The conviction, rightly or wrongly, was established in my mind that if such a gathering were truly representative of the Federation it certainly would not and could not be in a position to consider and decide on a question of such vital importance to the community, as the rate of wages that should be accepted by our young men in the Army today … even though he claims numerical superiority for his ‘Federation’ in Rangoon, it would scarcely be judicious, indeed it would be extremely hazardous, to allow matters of such vital importance to the Community to be left to the judgement of a preponderance of women and children, opinions are judged from ‘quality’ of origin rather than ‘quantity.’ (Cited in ibid.)

The Federation’s Honourary Secretary decried Gidney’s implication ‘that women and children preponderated among the members of the Federation’ as ‘reckless’ and untrue. Campagnac and his colleagues used this letter as the basis for a court action for libel against Gidney, claiming ‘Rs. 3,000 jointly as damages’ (Cited in ibid.). Gidney defended his remarks as ‘fair comment and criticism on [a] matter of public and communal interest’, pleading ‘that his conduct was neither malicious nor dishonest’, and countering ‘that the suit was false and … vexatious’ (Cited in ibid.). In the original court decision, the judge had ruled in favour of Campagnac and awarded ‘substantial damages’. In the Rangoon High Court, Gidney appealed against this decision, and the judge concluded that: The libels were not in my opinion serious. I doubt if … [Campagnac’s] reputation, which is admittedly high and well established in Rangoon, could possibly in the opinion of right thinking men suffer any material damage because it was said of a representative association such as the ‘Federation’ of which he was Chairman that it had a preponderance of woman [sic] and children among its members or that a number of women and children attending a meeting of its committee. Such libel as there was consists in the fact … [of Gidney’s] opinion that the Federation was not fit to be entrusted with the judgement and decision in matters of vital importance to the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Community, was supported by a false statement of facts … The libels were little more than technical and in my opinion ‘nominal’ as distinct from ‘contemptuous’ damages …

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[Campagnac] has cleared his character of any cloud that may have been cast on it by the libels. I would therefore set aside the judgement and … award … [Campagnac] nominal damages of ten rupees …. (Ibid.)

This decision was only handed down on January 17, 1930. It was not too long after Gidney had convened: …a Conference on Saturday the 28th December, 1929, of the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled Community in India and Burma in connection with … the Viceroy’s Pronouncement regarding Dominion Status being the natural and ultimate goal of India’s constitutional progress … it is vital in the interests of the Community that a Conference thoroughly representative in character should be held as soon as possible to consider the interests and future of the community … and to elect its delegate or delegates to … the Round Table Conference to be held in England next year. As the Conference is not confined to the Association it is hoped it will be fully representative of the entire community in India and Burma. (Anglo-Indian Review, Nov 1929, p. 11)

Gidney’s hopes of representing this greater Anglo-India were not to be. Gidney would be the sole representative of the mixed to attend all three Round Table Conferences, (Fig. 4.4) but after the first session, the British government announced in November 1931 that a separate Round Table Conference on Burma would be held in London on the premise of political separation from India and possible dominion status in its own right. At the Burma Conference Campagnac was listed as the ‘Anglo-Indian’ representative. But he undoubtedly already perceived, amidst rising Burmese nationalism, that it had become politic for Anglo-Indians in Burma to rebrand themselves. This separation was not as inevitable as it may now appear. Some Burmese politicians believed that working with Indian nationalists to throw off British rule should be their primary priority. In the Burma Legislative Council, speeches were made which called merely for greater autonomy from India, particularly as regards their net contributions and the value of their rice exports to the central Indian budget. These speeches sometimes spoke of Burma as being a good child of ‘mother India’, pointing to the counterfactual possibility that Burma might have become an autonomous unit within a postcolonial India federation as might also have been the case for the provinces that became

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Fig. 4.4  Henry Gidney (middle) leaving Buckingham Palace after an audience with the King following the third Round Table Conference

Pakistan in 1947. The dictates of his personalised political conflict with Gidney and his desire to establish his own political predominance among the mixed in Burma by disaffiliating from Anglo-India, thus coincided with Campagnac’s astute predictions about Burma’s future. The rationalisation he furnished in his Autobiography was that even during the conflict between the Empire League and Anglo-­ Indian Associations, which according to him were mainly about control of property and revenues: I had realized that Anglo-Burmans would have to separate from India, if they wanted to be eligible for posts in Burma. Already the cry, ‘Burma for the Burmans’ had been raised in Burma and Burmans were agitating that all posts in Burma should be filled by Burmans. Had the Anglo-Burman community continued to join forces with the Anglo-Indian community in India, Burmans would have regarded them as foreigners and they would have been in no better positions than Indians were in Burma. (Campagnac, p. 169)

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Strategies for Remoulding Group Identities Towards Rival Patriotisms and Nationalisms As an ethnic Anglo-Indian and the leader of a great many others like himself, in addition those sharing his wife’s background, Campagnac therefore sought to invert the constitutional nesting of the two categories. Where before ethnic Anglo-Burmans were officially designated as Anglo-­ Indians, now the ethnic Anglo-Indians would be officially redesignated as Anglo-Burmans. Although Campagnac (p. 169) was keen to emphasise that the ‘Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmans are two entirely distinct people’, they were conjoined as one broader mixed-race group both before and after this astute redesignation. Mixed-race people in Burma, even if their Asian ancestry was Indian, would now forge a more emphatically Burmese identity. The challenges of Indian and Burmese nationalism, and the demands from legislators for Indianisation and Burmanisation of state employment in which the mixed played a prominent middling and relatively privileged role within a discriminatory socioracial hierarchy, were forcing the broader wartime collectivity apart. Gidney’s politics mirrored Campagnac’s in the sense that he perceived his main challenge to be defence of Anglo-Indian employment from Indianisation, and similarly concluded that his community must accept a legal and civic status as Indians in order to make their ongoing employment by the colonial state tenable and defensible. But most Anglo-Indians in the late colonial period did not regard themselves as Indian. They generally equated any kind of Indian status, even for employment purposes, as being synonymous with being racially and culturally Indian. The August 1930 Report of the Chakardharpur Branch of Gidney’s Association tried to shift these attitudes and persuade readers that they should be proud of being ‘the fusion of two great races’ with analogies to ‘the grafted mango [being] most delicious’ and the ‘blended tea most expensive’, but felt compelled to admit: ‘Tell the Anglo-Indian young man, just left school, that he has Indian blood in his veins, which is the reason of his tinted skin and he’ll punch you on the nose (and he can punch hard)’ (Original emphasis; Anglo-Indian Review, August 1930, pp. 29–30). Their embrace of mixedness did not, however, imply any renunciation of the kind of imperial British patriotism described earlier, as is evident from their arrangements to celebrate a new holiday with a new ‘National Flag’ for the community:

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The Union Jack, the Standard of all our aspirations and dreams hung majestically over the stage, with a wreath of Lotus Lilies [representing India] and Rose Leaves [representing England] affixed to its centre … ‘Gidney Day’ is now inaugurated in our delightful little corner of Anglo-India … we feel sure this form of patriotism and loyalty to our Chief Col. Gidney will be whole-heartedly supported throughout India and Burma and in the future the 9th of June will be marked off as the ‘Red Letter’ day of ‘Anglo-India’ God Bless Col. Gidney…. (Ibid., p. 30)

‘Dr. Mrs. May Shave, M.L.C.’, president of the Lahore Branch, had taken a different approach, declaring that: …although she was in favour of ‘Gidney Day’ … she did not agree with … [the] suggestion to have a national Flag, as she considered it was too early to think of such a thing, and that when the suggestion did take shape at some future date she hoped the design would include an emblem which world [sic] represent all races of mixed blood. (Ibid., July 1930, p. 30)

Imperial Abdications, Perilous Retreats and Desperate Battles for the Future Though there is not enough space here to give equal attention to the Second World War, that conflict also provided greater avenues for Anglo-­ Indian men and women to serve in ways that, with notable exceptions, tended to validate their sense of Britishness or Britain-orientated Anglo identities. It also temporarily brought the two separated wings of greater Anglo-India back together, as more fortunate ethnic Anglo-Indians were evacuated or managed to survive a gruelling trek overland to reach India. Campagnac himself chartered a truck to get Anglos to Mandalay ahead of the advancing Japanese march on Rangoon, travelling onward to a disorganised refugee camp in Tongbo. Having told the Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burman men and women to remain at their posts in the hospitals, telegraph offices and on the railways, whilst British women and children were clandestinely evacuated by sea, the Anglos had been left in the lurch to face disproportionate victimisation and/or internment by the Japanese, who targeted the mixed as presumed affiliates of the British. As Campagnac (pp. 284–285) recounts: I called a meeting of the refugees and told them that there seemed to be only two courses open to us. One was to decide to remain in Burma and

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hide ourselves in the jungles, until we could make contact with the Japanese Imperial Army and ask them for protection. The other was to make a representation to the [British] Governor … and tell him the position we were in and ask him to arrange to fly us to India. There was a unanimous vote that we should follow the latter course … I told him that we had in the camp, Anglo-Burmans who had remained at their posts to the last to prevent the Administration breaking down … women who had worked in the War Office … engine drivers and their families and the families of Burma fighting men, as well as telegraphists, telephonists, customs and port officers. I sent this letter … through Mr. Baretto, an Anglo-Burman deputy commissioner who was staying in Maymyo ….

In the face of callous resistance from British ‘brass hats’, Campagnac (p. 285) insisted that the engine drivers among the group would only man trains further north to Myitkyna if they were allowed to take their families, and took a key part in organising the roughly 500-mile journey by rail. Campagnac (p. 289), his wife and daughter managed to board ‘a Canadian troop carrier’ aeroplane in order to fly to Assam. From there they proceeded to Calcutta and eventually to Bangalore where there were enough evacuees to form ‘a Burma Refugee Association’ (Ibid., p. 293). As a later British Foreign Office report understatedly put it: All those who could evacuated to India when the Japanese invaded Burma in 1942. About 9,000 reached India and an unknown number died on the way. Many of those who remained behind were interned by the Japanese and treated with varying degrees of harshness. Many, however, succeeded in passing as Burmese and fared no worse than their Burmese cousins. After the liberation, most returned to Burma, though a few, mainly Anglo-­ Indians, remained behind in India. (FO/371/123374, Confidential ‘The Anglo-Burmans’)

In Bangalore, Campagnac’s daughter Patricia joined ‘the Women’s Auxiliary Corps of India and was made a staff sergeant’ allowing the family to get better food (Fig. 4.5). Campagnac’s (p. 157) younger son Charles passed his Senior Cambridge exams and volunteered for Officer’s Training School—this son would go on to adopt ‘Indian Nationality’ and become ‘a Major in the 3rd Battalion of the Gurkha Rifles’, in which capacity he apparently met Nehru during the prime minister’s visit to ‘the Military Academy at Dehra Dun.’ His elder son Raymond who had been in a volunteer anti-­aircraft unit in Burma was to return ‘with the first contingent

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Fig. 4.5  Members of the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India), Peshawar, 1942. Anthony complained to Lady Wavell that although ‘80% of those women were Anglo-Indians … [and] barely 15% British people … all the upper ranks were only British’ (MSS EUR R193/1, Anthony, 1987–1988). The small proportion who came from other Indian communities generally opted for the sari variant of the WAC(I) uniform. (Photo courtesy of Charles Harvey, with additional thanks to Dorothy McMenamin)

of Wingate’s Chindits’ and spent another ‘three or four months in Burma attached to a contingent of the Leicesters, who had frequently attacked the Japanese and blown up a number of railway bridges’ (Ibid., p. 296). There is not enough space here to demonstrate the extent to which the Campagnacs’ military services were by no means exceptional. That one of his sons ended up opting for India after the war invited the obvious comparison with the choices with which Anglo-Indians were confronted with the Partition of India itself. In a tragic irony, Anglo-Indians would find themselves fighting on both sides of future conflicts between India and Pakistan, particularly in the two nation’s respective Air Forces, a branch of service in which they had been constrained during the Raj. Speaking

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before the Sapru Committee of 1945, Anthony had denounced the Muslim League’s demand for partition, prophesying that: …the minorities problem [might be] … much more acute, in both Pakistan and Hindustan … The Muslim claim would lead to the Balkanising of India. A potentially powerful India will be emasculated … in spite of differences, India has achieved a very definite ethnic unity … The division of India will lead to the probability, if not the certainty, of war between Hindustan and Pakistan and to the propagation of narrow and fanatical economic and political ideologies. (Cited in Sapru et al. 1945, p. 250)

When it became apparent that Punjab itself would be partitioned, a local Anglo-Indian leader in what was to become Pakistan, Mr. C.  E. Gibbon, in an echo of Campagnac’s earlier rebranding exercise, began to express highly divergent rhetoric from Anthony, declaring: …I feel that the interests of my small community are well placed in the hands of the architects of Pakistan … It is a well known fact that the ‘cream’ of the Anglo-Indian community comes from the Punjab. Their origin dates back nearly to 200 years—as a matter of fact, back to the days of the Afghans and the Mughals, mighty Muslim rulers in this land. Many of us Anglo-­ Indians in the Punjab can even trace our descent to the Kings of Oudh. Speaking for myself, I am in fact an Anglo-Muslim. My great grandfather married a Muslim princess, and so by descent I am a European-cum-Muslim. Such is the case with practically 99% of the Anglo-Indians of the Punjab. They are the descendants of the Anglo-Muslim race. A charge has been levied that the Anglo-Indian community has for one reason or another changed sides. I dare to say that the Anglo-Indian community has never taken sides to change sides. But attempts were made to coerce me and my community into taking sides. Diabolical means were adopted to force us in that direction. We, however, resisted … My community in the Punjab, though small in numbers, finds itself mostly in that notional division now known as West Punjab … We have, though small in number, largely contributed to the development of the Punjab and particularly the city of Lahore … Therefore we Anglo-Indians of the Punjab lay a very special claim to the city of Lahore …. (Cited in Sadullah 1983, pp. 235–237)

Gibbon pled with the Boundary Commission ‘not to split us more than what has been done in the past and to consider us as “another factor” in the case of Pakistan’ (Cited in ibid., p. 239). By which he meant that seeing as most of his flock were already residing in Pakistan and as he asserted

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‘99% of them have declared for Pakistan’, it would be better for his new state to have as much of Punjab as possible, if not the whole of Punjab. We may safely assume that had Gibbon and his constituents principally resided on the Indian side of the proposed new frontier, or had ‘a very special claim’ upon Amritsar, then he would have adopted a different tack. He certainly would not have thought of inventing the concept of the ‘Anglo-­ Muslim race’, which seems to have had less currency than the term AngloPakistani, which McMenamin (2019) argues did not remain salient within Pakistan in the decades following independence. This may be partly because, as she suggests, the Pakistani state, unlike India, gave no special constitutional recognition to the group. It may also be partially explained by Gibbon’s further assertion that: I can say without fear of contradiction that but for every white-faced Anglo-­ Indian styling himself a ‘European’, our numbers would have been very much larger [in the census]. This is pretty obvious from the fact that although our population is shown to be 5,891, nearly 4,000 Anglo-Indians with dependants [sic] are on the North-Western Railway alone. Similarly in the Posts and Telegraphs Department we have over 1,000 Anglo-Indians and in the Punjab Government service we have over 600, and about 2,000 in other walks of life. Approximately 8,000 Anglo-Indians. (Cited in ibid., p. 236)

In Burma, Aung San and six fellow members of his cabinet in the transitional government were assassinated in July 1947. In September, Campagnac approached the British authorities, explaining that: …altogether unexpectedly, the country has opted to leave the British Commonwealth of Nations; and … Anglo-Burmans as a separate racial group, have not been recognised in the same way as the other racial groups … and have thereby lost the status which they enjoyed … [under] the Government of Burma Act … Unlike their brethren in India, the position of Anglo-Burmans has thus altered fundamentally. They have lost all weightage rights in certain services and have suffered a severe set-back by losing their grants-in-aid for English Schools. In fact, the system of State Schools now adopted makes no provision for the existence of English Schools for Anglo-­ Burmans … This has been a grievous blow … and has come as a shock to those who participated in the ‘Simla Conference’ … [where] Tin Tut undertook to get the Burmese people to implement his promise … in the fundamental matter of education … [This] has had a tremendous effect on the

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morale of Anglo-Burmans as citizens of the country … they feel that they have no hope for a future in Burma, since education has been denied to their children … [and] a great impetus has been given to an already latent desire to emigrate to the Colonies. Perhaps this desire can best be explained by Ruth I:16. [Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God, KJV] … There is a grave obligation on the people of United Kingdom [and] on the British peoples overseas to shelter this small community of British descent in Burma … His Majesty’s Government must be fully aware of the claims Anglo-Burmans on them through kinship, by state service and lastly by their record of excellent work in the last war. There exists justification for compassionate assistance to those who feel that they should like to continue to remain within the British Commonwealth of Nations. Help is urgently needed for those who desire to emigrate … Unfortunately, unlike India, Burmese politics are full of passion and Burmese national pride is extremely sensitive. This explains why the resolution of the Anglo-Indian Burman Union … [and] this Memorial [has been submitted] in a confidential manner. (FO/643/140, Campagnac, ‘A Note’, 4th September, 1947, file pp. 48–49)

Campagnac’s clandestine support for emigration for those who desired to leave contrasted strongly with Anthony’s stance on the issue, but that reflected the loss of educational provisions and constitutional safeguards that Anthony would go on to achieve during the next few years of Indian constitution-making. The initial British response consisted of a few assisted passages for emigration to Britain and Commonwealth countries and the establishment of a charitable grant fund which it was hoped would help cushion Anglo-Burmans’ integration into the new nation. However, the situation only deteriorated further for the minorities. Burmese independence came in January 1948. In September, Mr Webb, an Anglo-­Burman ‘printer of the Gazette’, was standing forlornly in the street having just witnessed the bomb explosion that killed Tin Tut, Aung San’s former deputy who had not been present during the prior assassinations (Law-­ Yone 2014, p. 15). A complicated civil war soon followed involving the army, the communists and the substantially Christian Karen minority. On 7 March 1949, Campagnac (FO/643/140, ‘Minutes’, file, pp.  28–30) met with the British Ambassador on behalf of his Anglo-Burman Union, confiding that:

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The Anglo-Burman community was now in great danger and living in fear of violence from the Burmese. Anglo-Burman women reported that uniformed Burmese soldiers had threatened them saying they would be the next after the Burmese had finished with the Karens. Anglo-Burmans were accused of helping the Karens … The law and order situation was deteriorating rapidly and there might be rioting and robbery in Rangoon if Government authority broke down … Anti-Christian feeling was rising amongst Burmese Buddhists … chiefly directed against Christian Karens and as a result against Christians generally … Burmese still remembered and resented Anglo-Burman loyalty to the British Government and their previous somewhat privileged position … If there was mass evacuation of the British community from Burma … the Anglo-Burmans would certainly be massacred … Campagnac asked that if there is mass evacuation the Anglo-­ Burmans should be permitted to go too … A large number of Anglo-­ Burmans still could not get British passports … [which they] should be given … with the least amount of formality and documentation, and the British Government should help them emigrate elsewhere and give them funds to help … Campagnac [also] enquired whether the Government of India would consider taking a number of Anglo-Burmans in their proposed settlement in the Andaman Islands.

The Andamans had been the site of an earlier unsuccessful colonisation attempt by Anglo-Indians under Gidney’s leadership in 1923–1924, and had again in 1946 been reconnoitred by a group of Anglo-Indian empire loyalist opponents of Anthony calling themselves the ‘Britasian League’ (Anglo-Indian Review, June 1947, p. 11). The idea of creating an Anglo-­ Indian or broader pan-Eurasian colony as an autonomous state or possible future nation continued to be mooted among Anglo-Indians disaffected with their position in India and with Anthony’s leadership until at least 1956 (DO/35/6163 1956, pp. 1–2). Campagnac’s memorandum (1949, file p.  44) stressed Anglo-Burmans’ ‘distinguished and loyal service to England and the Empire’ ‘for more than a century’ detailing their extensive contributions in both world wars and pleading ‘that it would be only bare justice, for … [all who] were classified as Anglo-Burmans up to 1948, to be allow[ed to retain] … their status as British subjects and given free passages … [to British] Dominions … where they will be free to follow the religion … [of] their forefathers’. In India and Pakistan some Anglos had similarly sought to register themselves as British subjects, even if they did not desire to emigrate, as a form of insurance against any future deterioration in their position. Anthony attempted to dissuade them from doing so,

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warning that it would imperil their employment under the Indian government. The British Home Office encouraged Pakistani bureaucratic resistance to issuing Anglo-Indians travel documents to emigrate to Britain (DO/35/6163 1954, p. 2). In all of these cases the British had hoped to hand over the mixed to a responsible local government who would sympathetically work towards their integration into the new nation. This would avoid ongoing British financial and diplomatic liability. Yet, for Anglo-Burmans, as they would with East African South Asians in the early 1970s, the British state came to the reluctant conclusion that they should assist their emigration to Britain and other Commonwealth countries.

Paradoxical Postscripts The American journalist William L.  Shirer (1979), whose closeness to Gandhi in the 1930s undoubtedly resulted in personalised bias against Jinnah, would later reflect: History, of course, is full of paradoxes. Jinnah, the most irreligious of men, would become a terrible, unbending fanatic for a religiously ordered Islamic state. Gandhi, the most religious of Indians, would hold out to the bitter end for a secular India, which would tolerate all religions, but whose constitution and government would be beholden to none.

If as McMenamin (2019) claims, Muslims were significantly more tolerant on such questions than Hindus, why was it Nehru’s secular state that enshrined the most generous constitutional safeguards for Anglo-Indians, whereas the Pakistani state declined them ongoing recognition. If the analysis offered here thus far, that Burmese Buddhists were even more culturally and religious accepting of intermarriages and their offspring than Muslims, then how do we explain the fact that the postcolonial Burmese state became the most ethnonationalist and took active steps to make life intolerable for its mixed-race minority? These questions might be seen as similar paradoxes of history, but they make sense when viewed through the framework formulated by Snyder to explain that the more constitutional discontinuity, stateless conditions, occupations and civil war that took place, the more deadly was the situation for minorities, whom, as he persuasively argues, are the most reliant on their bureaucratic relationship as citizens to the state.

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The overarching question is how different were the identities of mixed-­ race people in what became the independent nation states of Burma, India and Pakistan? Where Anglo-Burmans significantly more British in their identity as the tone and rhetoric of Campagnac’s postcolonial appeals to Britain would indicate? Or was it that in India Anthony was faced with the relatively enlightened civic secular nationalism of Nehru rather than a Hindutva-type government under a figure like Purushottam Das Tandon? In any case, Anthony’s remarkable concessions in Indian constitution-­ making and his successful defence of Anglo-Indian schools and their right to teach all communities in English in India’s Supreme Court in 1954 did not prevent waves of emigration. In part this reflects the difficulties of imposing a top-down solution of identity reformulation upon unwilling constituents. It may safely be assumed that as well as possession of the material and documentary means to emigrate that the decision was at least partly connected with identity. As the first professional historian to foreground the Anglo-Indian experience, (1993, 1996) Christopher Hawes’s comments to the BBC (Radio 4 FM, 1997) furnish a fitting conclusion: When independence came to India, large numbers of Anglo-Indians left rather than continue to live in India, and nobody knows the precise number. I don’t know that anybody ever will. But figures such as 50,000 have been quoted, which was quite a considerable portion of the population. What is actually interesting now, fifty years later, looking back on that is that these Anglo-Indian emigrant families went back to Britain, they established themselves in Australia … Canada, and in America too, and really in English-­ speaking worlds. And it is … heartening, to see that … interest by Anglo-Indians in their heritage and themselves is increasing rapidly … in every major country there are Anglo-Indian Associations, there are lots of publications now which exist, which are there to help Anglo-Indians trace their ancestry … perhaps it is because they’ve … thrown off the problem they had seeing themselves as British, being part of a total British [colonial] edifice [in India] but not fully accepted by it.

References Almeida, R. (2017). Britain’s Anglo-Indians: The Invisibility of Assimilation. Lanham, MD. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London.

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Anthony, F. (2007). Britain’s Betrayal in India: The Story of the Anglo-Indian Community. Bombay, 1969, Repr. Bajpai, R. (2011). Debating Difference: Group Rights and Liberal Democracy in India. New Delhi. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Malden MA. Buettner, E. (2004). Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India. Oxford. Campagnac, C. H. (2011). The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England & Burma (ed. S. Campagnac-Carney). Raleigh NC. Caplan, L. (2001). Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World. New York. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2016). The Professional Lives of Anglo-Indian Working Women in the Twilight of Empire. IJAIS, 16(2), 3–29. Retrieved from www. international-­journal-­of-­anglo-­indian-­studies.org. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2017/2018). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism. London. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2020). Anglo-Indians in Colonial India: Historical Demography, Categorization, and Identity. In Z.  L. Rocha & P.  J. Aspinall (Eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification. London. Cully, R. E. (1910). “The Euro-Asian” or “Anglo-Indian.” A Burma Brochure by One of the Community. Rangoon. Dover, C. (1937). Half-Caste. London. Ghosh, D. (2006). Sex and the Family in Colonial India: the Making of Empire. Cambridge. Hawes, C. (1993). Eurasians in British India, 1773–1833: The Making of a Reluctant Community. Unpublished PhD Thesis, SOAS, University of London, UK. Hawes, C. (1996). Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773–1833. Richmond. Law-Yone, W. (2014). A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma. New York. McMenamin, D. (2019). Anglo-Indian Lives in Pakistan Through the Lens of Oral Histories. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Otago, New Zealand. Mizutani, S. (2011). The Meaning of White: Race, Class, and the ‘Domiciled Community’ in British India 1858–1930. Oxford. Nanda, B.  R. (2001). Gandhi: Pan-Islamism, Imperialism and Nationalism in India. Ebook. Robbie, C. T. (1919). The Anglo-Indian Force. Allahabad. Rush, A. (2011). Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization. Oxford. Sadullah, M. M. (1983). The Partition of the Punjab 1947: A Compilation of Official Documents, Vol. II. Lahore.

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Sampath, V. (2019). Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924. Ebook. Sapru, T., et al. (1945). Constitutional Proposals of the Sapru Committee. Bombay. Shirer, W. L. (1979). Gandhi: A Memoir. New York. Snyder, T. (2015). Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. Watson, G. (1970). Passing for White: A study of Racial Assimilation in a South African School. London. Wimmer, A. (2013). Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks. New York.

Interview

by

Author

Colonel Florence Watkins, Vice President Emeritus of the Jabalpur Branch of the All-India Anglo-Indian Association (in Jabalpur, 2010, then 98 years of age).

Online Sources Devji, F. (2020). ThinkFest Conversations 12: Are Gandhi and Jinnah Still Relevant? ThinkFest Pakistan. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=KtA4ZByiW5A&t=645s. H.A.J.  Gidney vs. Anglo Indian and Domiciled European Association et  al., Rangoon High Court, January 17, 1930. Retrieved from www.scconline.com. McGowan, A. Who Do You Think You Are. BBC One. Retrieved from http:// www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/past-­stories/alistair-­mcgowan.shtml.

Archival Sources Bodleian Library, University

of

Oxford

Census of India. (1891, 1901, 1911, 1921, 1931, 1941). Published in Multiple Volumes, Including Provincial Censuses. Imperial Code of Census Procedure, 1931. (1930). Proceedings of the Bombay Legislative Council. Proceedings of the Burma Legislative Council. Proceedings of the Central Legislative Assembly. Proceedings of the Imperial Legislative Council.

British Library MSS EUR R189/1-4, Interview with [Mr] Nissen, Roy Edward King. (1989). MSS EUR R193/1, Frank Reginald Anthony interviewed by Gillian Wright (between 1987-11 and 1988-01).

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MSS EUR T29 (see also R29/1-6), Transcript of Interview with [Mrs] Irene [M.] Edwards [née Green]. (1973). MSS EUR T52 (see also R52/1-4), Transcript of Interview with [Mr] Pierce, Eugene A.H., prefaced by ‘Mr Pierce’s Statement: Position of Anglo-Indians within British Raj’. (1973).

National Archive, UK ADM/1/8690/208, Anglo-Indians (Eurasians)—Entry into R.  N.—Genl. Service. (1925). CAB/37/159/42, Lieutenant H. S. D. McNeal, Report on the Siege of Kut-El-­ Amara. (5th December 1915 to 29th April 1916). Campagnac, C.  H. Most Confidential: A Note on the Present Position of the Anglo-Burman Community. (4th September, 1947). Campagnac, C. H. The Anglo-Burman Community: Memorandum by the Anglo-­ Burman Union. (Rangoon, 10th February, Damaged—Believed to be 1949a). Campagnac, C. H. Minutes. Record of meeting between H.E. and Deputation of the Anglo-Burman Union in H.E.’s Office on Monday 7th March, 1949b. Chatelier, R. G. ‘Founder & Leader, Eurasian Collectivist Party’, ‘Head Quarters: 30/B.  Cubbon Road, Bangalore-1, (Mysore State,) South India’, to Sir Anthony Eden, Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street, London. (16 June 1956). CO/968/142/3, Demobilisation Malaya Eurasian Volunteers. (1946). DO/196/76, The Position of Anglo-Indians. (1960). DO/35/6163, The Plight of Anglo-Indians in East Pakistan and Elsewhere, Confidential: FCO/15/56, Burma: Political Affairs (Bilateral): UK: Anglo/Burmese in Burma. (1967). FO/369/4421, Possibility of Resettling Anglo Burmans in N. Borneo. (1950). FO/369/4904, Welfare of the Anglo-Burman Community in Burma. (1953). FO/369/5223, Foreign Office (Consular Department), Burma, Requests for Assisted Passages. (1955). FO/371/111998, Far Eastern War Damage Schemes. (1954). FO/371/123374, ‘Copy of a Letter to Sir R. Scott, Singapore. Enclosed Copies of Notes on Anglo-Burmans and the Problems of Claimants to British Nationality in Burma’, Confidential ‘The Anglo-Burmans’. (1956). FO/371/69480, Anglo-Burmans and Anglo-Indians Wishing to Leave for Permanent Settlement in Australia. (1948). FO/371/83206, Regarding the Nationality and Passage to the UK of Carlyle Seppings. (1950). FO/643/140, British Embassy, Rangoon, ‘Anglo-Burmans’ (1949), including: FO/916/786, Welfare of Eurasians in the Far East: General Questions. (1943).

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GNL 19/199/1, J. Murray, UK High Commission, Karachi, to A. Morley CRO, London. (11 March 1954). WO/222/189/10. (cited in Starns, Stroud, 2010). WO/32/6889, Enlistment of Eurasians into British Regiments. (1895). WO/361/2227, Prisoners of War. (1945).

National Archive

of

India

Legislative Department, Assembly and Council Branch, February 1923, File no. Progs. nos. 5, Deposit, Abbott to the Editor, Indian Daily Telegraph.

Private Archive Delhi

of the

All India Anglo-Indian Association, New

Anglo-Indian Review or Review, or Anglo-Indian Review and Railway Union Journal. (Monthly Journal of the All India Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European Association, or Later the All India Anglo-Indian Association, Published First in Calcutta then Delhi. (1929–the present).

Radio BBC Radio 4 FM. (1997). Kutcha Butcha Half Baked Bread. 18 August.

PART II

Identities in Contemporary India

CHAPTER 5

Is the Anglo-Indian ‘Identity Crisis’ a Myth? Robyn Andrews

Introduction Debashis Bandyopadhyay writes, in his publication on the works of Anglo-­ Indian author, Ruskin Bond, ‘It is important for the reader to know, that on the eve of India’s Independence, the identity crisis of Anglo-Indians turned into a nightmare as they were jettisoned by the British Government as flotsam of the Empire, and spurned by nationalist Indians for their English bearing and alleged truck with the colonists’ (2011, p. 117). The idea of Anglo-Indians experiencing an identity crisis, as reported rather melodramatically in this instance, is an increasingly common, yet unexamined claim. The taken-for-grantedness of this idea is the starting point for this chapter, which seeks to problematise the notion of identity crisis and address the questions around Anglo-Indian identity in India. This chapter was first published in 2017 as ‘Is the Anglo-Indian identity crisis a Myth?’ In Z. Rocha & F. Fozdar (Eds.) Mixed Race in Asia Past, Present and Future (pp. 179–194). Routledge. It is published here with permission from Taylor and Francis. R. Andrews (*) Social Anthropology Programme, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_5

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The chapter begins by briefly defining the concept of identity, both ethnic identity and identity formation, for ‘mixed-race’ groups.1 This sets the scene to discuss what it might mean for such an identity to be in crisis. It then looks at the Anglo-Indian situation by first discussing Anglo-­ Indian origins and cultural characteristics, then arguing that although they have mixed descent origins, they may be considered a distinct ethnic group with an enduring identity. If this is the case, where do ideas of an identity crisis come from, and are they well-founded? Anglo-Indian identity issues are complex and heterogeneous, making this a challenging topic to explore, but the idea of an identity crisis is overdue for examination. Before discussing the identity context, I take a few lines to outline my position vis-a-vis the community. I am a New Zealand anthropologist with a long-standing and continuous research interest in the community, drawing from data and experiences from a range of projects including an ethnographically researched PhD (2005), Being Anglo-Indian: Practices and Stories from Calcutta, a collection of India-resident life stories and essays (2014), research with Anglo-Indians in ‘small towns’ of India, a project looking at the place of religion in Anglo-Indian lives, as well as a project on Anglo-Indian ageing in India and abroad. This body of work suggests that while Anglo-Indian identity is fluid, variable, and changing, it is not in a state of crisis.

Identity The study of ethnicity and ethnic groups has experienced paradigmatic shifts over time, with the pioneering work of social constructionist Fredrik Barth (1969) on ethnic groups and ethnic boundaries representing a significant shift in the field. According to Barth (1969), an ethnic group is one in which the population: . is largely biologically self-perpetuating, 1 2. shares fundamental cultural values, realised in overt unity in cultural forms, 3. makes up a field of communication and interaction,

1  I use inverted commas to indicate the contentious and contested nature of the term ‘race’ and the lack of foundation for claims based on biological essentialism.

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4. has membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others, as constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order. Contemporary anthropology builds on these ideas emphasising that ethnic identity is fluid and dynamic, as well as constantly moving and changing (Sökefeld 1999). Identity is socially constructed, negotiated, defined, and produced through interactions between members of a group (Nagel 1994). According to Barth’s theoretical emphasis on boundary formation and maintenance, members of other groups are also involved in determining membership of ethnic groups, at times through exclusionary practices. Nagel (1994) writes about ‘nested identities’ indicating that a person may have many different identities, personal and social, depending on their context and situation. In the case of Anglo-Indians, their national identity is also a significant part of their nest of identities. National identity in its ideal and most simple form requires that ethnic boundaries do not cut across political boundaries (Gellner 1983). However, this ideal is less and less likely anywhere in the contemporary globalised context. In India, which has significant ethnic and communal diversity, a singular national identity is unrealistic. Importantly then, according to political scientist, Subrata Mitra, the main articles of the Indian Constitution ‘abjured racial purity in favour of birth and residence on the soil of India’ (Mitra 2010, p. 46), with the Constitution recognising as Indian citizens those who are born in India.2 The 5th Article of the Constitution states that: 5. At the commencement of this Constitution, every person who has his domicile in the territory of India and— (a) who was born in the territory of India; or (b) either of whose parents was born in the territory of India; or (c) who has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India for not less than five years immediately preceding such commencement, shall be a citizen of India.

2  Although Mitra uses the term ‘race’ rather than ethnicity, his argument is unaffected. In India, the term ‘community’ might also have been used to make the point that citizenship provides legitimate grounds for nationalism (i.e. the feeling of being part of the nation).

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Anglo-Indians in India meet these criteria of citizens of India, but do Anglo-Indians feel ‘Indian’ (even bearing in mind the multiplicity of what such a term means)? And do non-Anglo-Indians recognise them as ‘Indian’? Turning now to the idea of identity crisis: Erik Erikson, who introduced the concept, wrote of an individual or group identity crisis stating: Identity formation normatively has its negative side which throughout life can remain an unruly part of the total identity. The negative identity is the sum of all those identifications and identity fragments which the individual had to submerge in himself as undesirable or irreconcilable or by which atypical individuals and marked minorities are made to feel ‘different’. In the event of aggravated crises, an individual (or, indeed, a group) may despair of the ability to contain these negative elements in a positive identity. (Erikson 1970, p. 733)

In his work, Erikson refers to groups, not just individuals, and draws from anthropological observations, rather than only from his clinical data. In the quote above, he asserts that despair about containing negative elements is a characteristic of an identity in crisis, whereas a positive identity would preclude such a crisis. He also talks about versions of identity crises. For example, in writing of native Americans, he states: ‘A different version of such a crisis could be seen in the American Indians, whose expensive “re-education” only made them fatalistically aware of the fact that they were denied both the right to remain themselves or to join America’ (Erikson 1970, pp. 748–749). This was written at a particular period of history when the prevailing view was that assimilation into the mainstream majority was the desirable outcome for minority groups.3 This is now rarely an overt aim, but this ‘different version’ of an identity crisis may have resonance with the Anglo-Indian situation in terms of how they felt about being encouraged to ‘be Indian’, especially at the time of independence. Native Americans, perhaps in a similar manner to Anglo-Indians, may themselves not have aspired to be thought of as anything other than what they were, in this case, the indigenous peoples of a particular geographical location. Is this a situation of members of the majority 3  American Vasundhara Mohan’s publication (Mohan 1987) focussing on Sri Lankan Muslims also argues that an identity crisis can occur when the ‘subordination of their separate identity’ occurs through assimilation of a minority with the majority population, in this case the minority Sri Lankan Moors with Sri Lankan Tamils.

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population imposing their acculturation ideals on members of a minority group, inferring an identity crisis that is not felt by members of the minority group if full acculturation is not achieved? Over the last four decades, social groups such as the native peoples of America have had a strong agenda of reclaiming and strengthening their identities. While this may have been in the face of a prognosis of decline and demise as an ethnic group (a fear shared by other indigenous groups, such as New Zealand Māori), the anxiety was tied to their socio-cultural longevity, rather than not knowing who they are. The idea of their identities being in crisis is therefore not convincing, rather it is a sense of crisis about their ongoing existence, which is now being addressed. Others offer psychological interpretations of Erikson’s concept to imply that ‘an identity is in crisis if an individual exhibits or expresses indeterminacy’ (Lahiri 2000).4 This idea has been a familiar trope in mixed-race literature (and other mixed-identity situations, such as indeterminate or multi-sexual and/or gender identity), with mixed-race individuals understood to have to choose their identity from one or other of their heritages. In the next section, I review selected mixed-race literature, setting the scene to argue later in the chapter that Anglo-Indians are a particular type of ‘mixed race’, one which has a strong and enduring identity for all it may not be homogenous. Rockquemore et  al. (2009) in the opening sentence of their article state: ‘In the United States, the debate over how individuals with parents of different races (i.e., mixed-race people) would be racially categorized…’ makes clear their understanding of what or who a mixed-race person is. They are individuals with mixed parentage. Mixed-race scholar, Gilbert (2005), when writing of this ‘group’, identify them as being ‘from dual ethnic or racial groups’ (2005, p.  58) but also makes it clear that he is looking at individuals and their experiences of being mixed race. The authors of both articles are at pains to move away from theories depicting the mixed-race experiences as being entirely negative as I discuss below. The strength of Rockquemore et al.’s (2009) article is the theoretical identity framework they propose which offers a nuanced range of ways identity (which they differentiate from identification) may be claimed. They propose the following theoretical approaches to identity: the problem, the equivalent, the variant approach, and the ecological approach. 4  This is from her work on Anglicised Indians in Britain from 1880 to 1930, who are termed by her as Anglo-Indians.

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The problem approach sees the individual as being ‘in a problematic social position that is inevitably marked by tragedy’ (2009, p. 16). This theory emerged at a particular historical juncture based on a ‘racist and eugenic epistemology’ (2009, p. 16) in which the ‘focus on deficits, dilemmas, and negative experiences’ due to being mixed race was prevalent’ (2009, p. 16). The identity work required an individual to adjust and assimilate to one of their parent’s identities, usually to the dominant group. Such individuals were understood to be ‘doomed to a permanent state of crisis’ (2009, p. 16) due to not being able to achieve this. This theory sees mixed identity in terms of a binary, which, as I show later, appears to be the way in which Anglo-Indians are viewed by those who assert they are in crisis. The equivalent approach drew on Erickson’s ego development model and saw, in the United States’ situation, both phenotypically based, and ‘one-drop’ understanding of identity which resulted in mixed-race people being identified as, and treated as, equivalent to ‘Black’. The authors make the point that this theory also reflects a particular historical moment (2009, pp. 17–18). The variant approach that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s shifted the focus from the problematics of the experience of mixedness to viewing people of mixed parentage as potentially having an identity distinct from either of the parent groups, that of bi or multiracial identity. In addition, mixed race was seen as a group in and of itself—for analytical purposes at least. It comprised people who while potentially still faced challenges, those would be ‘located in the process of developing a multiracial identity, not essential to the multiracial location itself’ (2009, p. 18). This and the next approach are particularly opposed to the idea that identity must be based on parental identity, and that it must be problematic. The ecological approach, the most recent approach, allows for the most variation in identity outcomes, seeing identity as being determined by context, including that of time and stage of life, and socio-political setting. It allows for single, bi, multi‘racial’ positioning, or the rejection of identity categorisation altogether (2009, p. 19). Gilbert’s (2005) discussion of identity also critiques early eugenics-­ based models which focus on the mostly negative experiences of people of ‘mixed race’, which draw on a ‘deficit-model’ (2005, p. 60). He tenders his surprise that such a model has endured and is concerned about the social, educational, and psychological impacts of this (2005, p. 60). He seeks and offers more nuanced accounts, some of which fit into or overlap with those discussed above. Drawing on empirical material, he addresses

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‘the question of belonging’ (2005, pp. 67–68) at an individual level. This issue is of concern to Anglo-Indians too, as I discuss, but at the group level. As will be seen after describing the Anglo-Indian situation, while the identity experiences of the earliest Anglo-Indians may fit Rockquemore et al.’s (2009) earlier models of individual identity formation above, for some centuries they have been regarded as a social group. Aspects of the ‘problem’ and ‘equivalent’ approach models are drawn on by people who describe Anglo-Indians as being in crisis vis-a-vis their identity, but this is not only erroneous but simplistic and outdated—both in terms of contemporary ways of thinking about and understanding mixed race, and about this group who mostly are not the progeny of ‘racially’ distinct parents. Before I leave this section, I look at a group who can usefully be compared with Anglo-Indians: Singapore’s Eurasians. Alexius Pereira, a member of the ‘group’ who he defines as descendants of Europeans and Asians (1997, p. 7), describes the ‘instrumental’ revitalisation of their ethnicity. He explains that their revitalisation and claim to a distinct ethnicity was a deliberate exercise carried out in order to gain social economic and political benefits in the face of increasing marginalisation in Singapore’s multi-­ ethnic social space. He claims that their ‘shared ethnicity’ did not arise from an existing sense of themselves as a community but rather their ‘new identity is being constituted from various cultural aspects, some of which were not even practised in Singapore in the past’ (1997, p. 21). The effect was that through essentialising their ethnic identity Eurasian becomes another ethnic group in Singapore. In his review of the literature on other mixed-descent groups, he also makes the point that Anglo-Indians have a history of identifying as a distinct group: Anglo-Indian Eurasians in India in the 18th and 19th centuries were heavily discriminated against both by the British and the Indians because their hybridity was perceived to be a ‘moral flaw’ or ‘dilution of the strong blood’ (Gist and Wright 1973) by both the parent groups. As a result, the Anglo-­ Indians were forced to become self-reliant, and eventually formed a tight-­ knit social group of their own. (1997, p. 9)

The sense of identity crisis which seems closest to how it is used in reference to Anglo-Indians in India is that of being indeterminate about their identity. As the identity crisis refers to the social group of Anglo-Indians,

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rather than to individuals, the inference is that it is the group that is not firm or clear about their collective identity. That is the central idea that this chapter will explore and challenge. To be able to assess whether Anglo-Indians are experiencing an identity crisis, the chapter begins by describing their origins and cultural characteristics. It then looks at some of the challenges they face as a tiny minority, with origins in colonialism, within the population-dense milieu of Hinduism. It also considers an emic concern: whether it is necessary for a group to have a homeland. Does the urge to have a homeland demonstrate that Anglo-Indians recognise each other as a distinct minority ethnic community? Based on research within the community, the chapter shows that while there may have been obstacles and challenges for the community in India, Anglo-Indians are quite assured about who they are and how they are different from the majority population groups.

Origins: From Colonised to Globalised Anglo-Indians are a product of colonisation. It is through Western expansion of trade and rule from the very late fifteenth century that Europeans arrived in India, first the Portuguese and then the French. But it was the British who had the most significant and enduring impact until the middle of the twentieth century. Trade and colonialism were almost exclusively masculine endeavours, and in the case of the British in India, tens of thousands of single males found themselves in India for years at a time, during which time many formed alliances with and married local women (Hawes 1993, 1996). It is from these relationships that the first Anglo-Indians were produced. In the earliest days of their existence, these offspring, particularly those of British men (as opposed to Portuguese or other European men) and Indian women, were most often treated as if they were British. However, after some time, as previously noted by Pereira (1997, p. 9) in response to eugenics racism combined with anti-miscegenation sentiments, the British began to distance themselves from Anglo-Indians. One result of this is that Anglo-Indians came to form a socio-culturally distinct community. Arguably, another factor in the formation of a discrete community was their exclusion from caste-conscious Hindu society, which valued purity and regarded mixed descent as a form of impurity or pollution. As both Christopher Hawes (1993, 1996) and Megan Mills (1998), amongst others, have documented, the British varied in their treatment of

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and attitude towards Anglo-Indians at different times, barring them from some positions but generally giving them preferential employment in subordinate roles in maintaining the infrastructure of British India. They worked in the railways, post and telegraph, customs, nursing, teaching, and in the armed forces. It is a point of pride for many (particularly older) Anglo-Indians that they have a history of unfailing support for the British in any altercation they entered into. In the first War of Independence (also known as ‘the Mutiny’), for example, Anglo-Indians fought alongside the British, rather than Indian groups (Hawes 1996). Given Anglo-Indians’ background of attachment to Britain it is understandable that Indian Independence in 1947 posed a potentially serious threat to them: Anglo-Indians were fearful of reprisals once India gained independence. These did not, in fact, eventuate; rather, they were able to claim a number of benefits which were written into the Constitution of the newly elected government. The benefits included representation in State Legislative Assemblies where their population warranted it (Article 333); provision of two seats in the Lok Sabha—also known as The House of the People (Article 331); employment reservations (referred to by Anglo-­ Indians as ‘quotas’) in the railway, customs, postal, and telegraph services (Article 336); and an allocation of grants for Anglo-Indian schools (Article 337) on the condition that the schools accept at least 40% non-Anglo-­ Indian students. These benefits, with the exception of state and national representation, were set up with a formula for their gradual disbandment. Even so, in 2016, schools still continue to be protected by a ‘dearness allowance’ scheme which subsidises teachers’ salaries, and other grants which enable Anglo-Indian students’ preferential access to the schools. While other benefits have now gone, Anglo-Indians still had, when this chapter was originally published, political representation at the national level and at state level in a number of states.5 Even though there were benefits, rather than reprisals, with the first post-Independence Congress-led government, this did not ameliorate Anglo-Indians’ sense of insecurity about their future in India. As the British left India, Anglo-Indians began to do the same, resulting in three major waves of migration (Blunt 2005; Caplan 2001; Mahar 1962). Immediately after 1947, tens of thousands left for England, which they 5  This situation has now changed, however, with a Constitution Amendment Bill introduced in December 2019 effectively removing Anglo-Indians’ political representation as of 26 January 2020.

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had always considered as some sort of a homeland (Blunt 2002; Stark 1926). The second major migratory wave was in the early 60s coinciding with a move in India to replace English as the national language. The prospect of Hindi replacing English as the national language was a concern to Anglo-Indians as most did not speak Hindi well enough for employment and other purposes. Another reason for the migration at this time can be attributed to the closure of large international companies in the main centres where many Anglo-Indians had employment.6 The third wave, from the 70s and continuing, is described as the ‘family reunion’ wave (President of the All India Anglo-Indian Association (AIAIA), personal communication, February 2002) and is referred to in migration literature as ‘family reunification’7 (Massey et al. 1998, p. 161; Moch 2005, pp. 98–99). There are now believed to be more Anglo-Indians living outside of India than inside. In terms of nomenclature, Anglo-Indians were initially known as Eurasians, with other terms, such as ‘half-caste’, also used occasionally (Blunt 2005; Caplan 2001).8 It was not until 1911 when the first census was conducted in India that the name Anglo-Indian became widely accepted and associated with the modern definition. In 1935, the current definition was adopted into the Government of India Act, and it became embedded in the Indian Constitution post-Independence.9 Some scholars, particularly post-colonial, refer to them as a ‘hybrid’ community. Their hyphenated name suggests this, but they can equally be seen as distinctive in and of themselves rather than being a ‘mixed race and culturally composite community’ (Caplan 2001, p.1).10 Before exploring this idea

6  This issue was highlighted to me by Anglo-Indians I interviewed (in Melbourne in 2007) about their reasons for coming to Australia, and is noted by Blunt (2005, p. 156). 7  The term ‘chain migration’ is also used to express the same idea. 8  Until 1911 the term Anglo-Indian was used to refer to Europeans who were domiciled in India, who after 1911 were called Domiciled Europeans. 9  The Indian Constitution states that: ‘An Anglo-Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only’ (Section 366 (2)). 10  This situation is comparable with the Eurasians of Singapore, albeit with different foundations and claims to community.

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further, the next section discusses what it means, socially and culturally, to be Anglo-Indian in India.11

Anglo-Indian Cultural Characteristics At the risk of simplifying and homogenising a huge diversity of ways of being Anglo-Indian, I suggest a set of ‘typical’ cultural characteristics can be distilled. This may seem incongruous when I clearly value the richness and diversity provided by individual stories in research,12 but it can serve a useful purpose as a way to draw a rough sketch of the community by highlighting the ways they are differentiated from other Indian communities. The usual list (found in scholarly works such as, Blunt 2005; Caplan 2001) of key characteristics differentiating Anglo-Indians from other communities in India are mostly associated with their practices: having English as their mother tongue (the AIAIA argues that this characteristic is crucial to their identification as Anglo-Indians), acknowledging their historical link to Europe, and being Christians. They frequently dress in Western clothing especially in all Anglo-Indian company; enjoy their own unique cuisine, including vindaloo, ball curry, country captain; employ Western eating practices such as using cutlery; and usually have European names.13 In terms of appearance, Anglo-Indians range from being ‘fair’14 to swarthy. Some have ‘coloured’ (blue or green) eyes but most have brown. Some have what was described by Anglo-Indians as the ‘pulled’ eyes of north-eastern ‘tribal’ Indians. This phenotyping is not what provides their identity though, rather it is adherence with the Constitution’s definition for all its inherent gender bias. Anglo-Indians themselves are quick to provide a list of their general characteristics and to dispute others’ portrayals of their characteristics. I was made aware of the latter aspect soon after the movie Bow Barracks Forever (Dutt 2007) was released. This film was ‘based on a true story’, 11  Anglo-Indians’ identities in the diaspora might be shaped differently again, due to the influences of different time and place contexts. 12  This preference is demonstrated in my work, Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian Stories and Essays (Andrews 2014). 13  These characteristics may also be displayed by English-medium educated, middle-class non-Anglo-Indians (with the exception of the names) but are characteristics of all AngloIndians, regardless of class and education. 14  To use their term which refers to skin tone, rather than hair colour—which is almost always dark.

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with that ‘story’ being about the proposal to demolish the former American Army barracks in central Calcutta which became home to many Anglo-­ Indian families after the Americans left after WWII. There are still Anglo-­ Indians living there, with demolition of the buildings an ongoing possibility. The characters in the movie, mostly Anglo-Indians, are fictional, and generally negatively stereotyped. Just after the movie was released, I was in Calcutta on a fieldwork trip and I managed to buy a copy to view. A few days later I attended an Anglo-Indian house party and took the opportunity to ask what other guests had thought of it. I was told in no uncertain terms that Anglo-­ Indians had been misrepresented by the movie, that ‘even Bow Barracks Anglo-Indians’ were not as bad as the director, Anjun Dutt, had portrayed. They were openly angry saying that Dutt has no idea about how Anglo-Indians live, and that his was a negative and quite inaccurate depiction.15 His portrayal seems to draw on a ‘deficit model’ (Gilbert 2005) focussing on negative characteristics purportedly attributable to mixed descent. They commented that the fighting, the womanising, the ‘wasters’ who had been deserted by emigrating family, and who themselves longed to be in another land, were not Anglo-Indians as they knew them. They were particularly offended by the character of ‘Aunty Lobo’ as an Anglo-­ Indian woman selling homemade alcohol, saying that they don’t even brew alcohol there. A little later in the evening my host told me that his guests were quintessential Anglo-Indians; that they get on with and look after each other and have a good time together. I was told that this very convivial party was typical of Anglo-Indians, and was reminded by one of them, again, that they, not the Anglo-Indians in the film, were real Anglo-Indians. The negative portrayal in India is something Anglo-Indians are aware of, and not surprisingly, are sensitive about. Their practices are quite different in many ways from most other Indian groups, particularly in their Western worldview and the way they socialise with those who are not of the same gender or family.16 Other groups in India are disparaging about 15  I spoke to one of the real-life characters portrayed in Anjan Dutt’s film. He said that Dutt had been hurt and saddened by the Anglo-Indian response to his film, claiming that Dutt had always had a ‘soft corner’ for Anglo-Indians and appreciated, envied, and perhaps even admired the fact they so obviously enjoyed life (personal communication, November 2007). 16  Interestingly, Parsis, another very small minority community in India, are also known for similar forms of sociability, yet they are seen positively in India. I would conjecture that it is

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these attributes of the community, judging them negatively in comparison with their own worldviews and practices.17 Perhaps this ‘othering’ of Anglo-Indians as a particular social group could result in a more coherent ethnic identity.

Ethnic Identity Given the history of Anglo-Indians and their shared socio-cultural characteristics, this section argues that Anglo-Indians are a particular type of ‘mixed race’ with a distinct and enduring identity, as opposed to an identity crisis. Laura Bear (2007), an historical anthropologist, has suggested that they are a railway ‘caste’, seeking to find a term that is meaningful to the majority Hindus who frame groups by (usually symbolic) occupation, and in doing so, indicating that she also framed them as being distinct. Anjali Roy, in this volume, picks up this idea in her discussion of Anglo-­ Indians and explores it further drawing on occupations and recreation practices. This section explores how the case of Anglo-Indians relates to Barth’s ideas about ethnic groups and ethnic identity. First, ethnic groups are largely biologically self-perpetuating. Anglo-Indians have been generally endogamous until recently, so they have been biologically perpetuating. Up until the early 1960s, Anglo-Indians very often lived together in colonies (e.g. railway colonies) or in the same neighbourhoods. Now, with a reduced population of Anglo-Indians in India, combined with more social mixing in neighbourhoods, schools and universities, and in the workplace, there are more marriages outside of the community than was previously the case (Williams 2002). The second of Barth’s criteria stipulates sharing fundamental cultural values. My research has involved spending time with members of the community from the hill stations in the north to railway towns through central India, to the Union Territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala and Goa. Across this range of regions, Anglo-Indians appear to share a combination of two factors that attribute to that: they are known as being wealthy and they are not ‘mixed race’. 17  Ironically, many Indians too have hankered after westernisation and Englishness, illustrated, for example, by many of their leaders being Oxbridge educated (See http://www. paveinternships.com/ten-distinguished-indian-personalities-studied-uk). So many students study in the West even now so one can only wonder why the vitriol was reserved for AngloIndians who were accused of ‘hankering for Englishness’.

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fundamental cultural values as well as practices. These include being Christian, almost entirely English-speaking, with a Western world view, and socialising in particular ways which are distinguishable from other Indian communities’ forms of socialising. While there are some points of difference between the groups in geographical locations, there is no question that they share significant characteristics. Barth’s third characteristic is that they need to make up a field of communication and interaction: Because the community is relatively small in India, Anglo-Indians often have links to each other, for example, shared family, friendships, and schools acquaintances.18 It is not an uncommon occurrence in my research to meet people who have heard about me and my research beforehand through these networks. Nationally, as well as internationally, the community is also linked through social media, community publications, and associations. Even when Anglo-Indians are not related or have people, schools, social media, or membership of associations in common, Benedict Anderson’s idea of an ‘imagined community’ seems to capture best how Anglo-Indians feel about their relationship to each other (Anderson 1991), that is, that they feel connected even if they are not personally known to each other. The community’s shared language and world view enables them to make up a field of communication and interaction, and importantly for Barth’s theory which considers the effect of boundary maintenance, differentiates it from others who do not. Fourth, in terms of having a membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others, as distinguishable from others, they are identifiable both officially through the constitutional definition of Anglo-Indians, and practically through cultural attributes which are recognised by both insiders and outsiders. In addition, as I have noted above, they form national associations, such as the AIAIA, with numerous local branches scattered throughout India, as well as other local but nationally recognised societies, clubs, and organised groups. Meeting Barth’s criteria in the ways they do, Anglo-Indians can, I argue, be viewed as a distinct ethnic group. They are a community with a strong history and set of cultural practices that distinguish them from other groups. Counter to the idea of an identity crisis, despite all the changes since Indian independence, including large-scale Anglo-Indian 18  The size of the community is unknown as it has not been enumerated in any type of census since 1951. Then, it was believed to be about 500,000, and while many have migrated, the population has built up again (Anthony 1969).

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migration to many parts of the world, their distinct identity has been retained. While their identity is not ‘in crisis’, they do have concerns about belonging, specifically as part of the nation of India, in terms of citizenship, this is, of belonging to the nation and identifying with the society. That this is seen as a common issue of community concern also confirms the strength of their identity as a community.

Concerns About Belonging India is a land of great diversity: it is home to different groups which generally have a link to a particular geographical location: the Bengalis (both Hindu and Muslim) to Bengal, Punjabis to the Punjab, for example. It is frequently pointed out that Anglo-Indians are the only people in India who have ‘Indian’ in their name, and, as is often added, are ‘people of India’, rather than of a particular region. Lionel Caplan, who has carried out research with Anglo-Indians in Chennai, writes that post-Independence, Anglo-Indians face a paradox of belonging as they ‘have for a considerable period constituted and recognized themselves as a separate collectivity with a distinctive character and agenda of their own’ (Caplan 2001). Anglo-Indian politicians, such as Anthony and Gidney (the leaders of the AIAIA up to and around the time of Independence), have consistently been urging Anglo-Indians to stay, to consider themselves Indian, and make their home in India (Blunt 2005, pp. 59, 124). They are, constitutionally, citizens of India, but do Anglo-­ Indians feel they belong to the nation of ‘India’? One response to the question of whether Anglo-Indians feel they belong was demonstrated at a public discussion I witnessed in 2003 at a World Anglo-Indian Day celebration in Calcutta. The theme for discussion was ‘Tomorrow’s People Speak Today’. The Anglo-Indian participants in the panel discussion included a high school student and three college students.19 Two older Anglo-Indians, a social worker and an educationalist joined them.20 The West Bengal MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) at the time facilitated the discussion on topics such as education, occupational opportunities, emigration, mixed marriages,  In India, tertiary institutions are referred to as colleges.  In their introduction a distinction was made between them as ‘people of today’ and the students who were ‘tomorrow’s people’. 19 20

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and contemporary Anglo-Indian lifestyles. He questioned the panellists about the ethnicity of their friends and, to the amusement of the good-­ natured audience, of their boyfriends and girlfriends. He asked them about their competence in a vernacular language. After they had unanimously agreed with him that knowledge of a vernacular was important, they offered demonstrations, speaking in Hindi, Bengali, or Nepali, with confident fluency. All but one of the student participants were dressed in traditional Indian clothing, reinforcing what emerged as one of the central themes of the morning’s debate, that they were ‘Indian’. One of the panellists, for example, ended his opening address with ‘we are Indians, the Anglo-Indians’. As well as several of the young panellists articulating the desirability of integration of Anglo-Indians with ‘the rest of India’ (some going further, to say that Anglo-Indians were well along the road to integration), this sentiment was also evident in various forms of symbolism throughout the morning—for example, the opening celebration which involved the very Hindu lighting of oil wicks, and the reference to the discussion as an ‘adda’ (a Bengali term for talking convivially amongst friends and associates). The young panellists gave the impression that they were very much at home in India, with one telling exception: the comment by one young woman that ‘we don’t have a country of our own’ (which was quickly refuted by the chair who countered with ‘all of India is our country’). The woman’s comment seemed spontaneous; the others somewhat rehearsed, or scripted, in comparison. A further example is this anecdote from my journal notes: On the morning of August the 2nd 2003, which is Anglo-Indian day, I asked a couple of young Anglo-Indian men (at the hostel I was living in) if they were going to the dance at the Rangers Club that night. Neither of them was but they knew about it. I asked if they were going to any other of the Anglo-Indian day events. One response was ‘No but … Oh, is that what the dance is for?’ Why was the second of August chosen as Anglo-Indian day they wondered? One speculated that perhaps it was the date of Anglo-Indian independence. ‘From what?’ another asked, then ventured a reply: ‘India? We’d love independence from India!’

This statement is revealing in terms of how these Anglo-Indians see themselves in relation to India—that they would prefer to be separated from it. This is behind the motivations of some in moves to establish their

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own space within India, for example, to form an Anglo-Indian homeland of McCluskiegung in Bihar (Blunt 2003; Dutt 1990), Woodfields near Bangalore (Blunt 2003), and in the idea of settling in the Andaman Islands (Bear 2007). At the Melbourne Reunion in 2003, this alleged opportunity was still being spoken about, with regret that it had not been achieved. I have also come across alternative responses to the idea of belonging in India: for example, in this interview with an Anglo-Indian author who lives in a town in the north of India, he talks about his claim to be part of the soil of India, and what that means. In my case this little piece of land [on which his home is built], this is India to me. So how does it matter what I am, you know, what I call myself or what my ancestors were? These things are important; I’m not saying they are not. But one can’t say they’re attached to ‘India’? That’s right, well I talked about that in this book. You know, I said in there, any book that has the word India in its title is a fake because there is no such thing. You can’t talk about it in an academic way. (December 2014 Interview)

This interviewee makes the point that India is so vast and diverse geographically and politically that it does not make sense to refer to it as a homogenous unit. But that the part of India he lives on is home to him, and he is not alone in this view. As I found when carrying out research in the railway town of Asansol (Andrews 2018), other Anglo-Indians also indicated that owning a home gives them a sense of belonging, of being at home. It is a minority who do own their home though. For example, the results of a 2010/2011 survey carried out in West Bengal indicated that only 24% lived in homes or apartments they owned, and in Calcutta that figure was at just 18% (Andrews 2015). So while some Anglo-Indians may feel that they have a stake in the nation due to home ownership, that is, due to owning a piece of land they symbolically own a piece of the nation through it, many more do not have this opportunity. For these Anglo-­ Indians, this may factor in their sense of still seeking to belong, or to migrate and belong somewhere else. That they may not all feel ‘at home’ in the land of their citizenship does not take away from this identity. Rather, it is an indication of the strength of their identity that they would seek a convergence of their ethnic identity with a geographical locale by seeking a homeland within India.

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Anglo-Indians represent something of an outlier or anomaly in that they fit none of Rockquemore et al.’s (2009) identity formation models, primarily due to the characteristic of their identity as a social group of long-standing who identify and are identified by others as being socially and culturally distinct. Those who assert Anglo-Indians have an identity crisis infer that they are indeterminate about who they are, as they seek to be something they are unable to be, that is, British. In Rockquemore et al.’s (2009) schema this would best be described through a ‘problem’ approach to understanding their ‘mixed-race’ identity. This early model and attached ideas about the characteristics of people of ‘mixed race’ no doubt contributed to the Anglo-Indian experience of being negatively stereotyped.21 Indian independence, which certainly caused anxiety for Anglo-Indians, may have added to the notion that they suffer an identity crisis especially as so many initially migrated to Britain. So while the genesis of the negative ideas about Anglo-Indians can be understood as a product of certain times and paradigms, it is hoped that the scholarship on mixed race will bring about a more compassionate and accurate assessment of this ‘mixed-race’ community. Likewise, through an analysis of Anglo-Indians and their purported identity crisis, the scholarship regarding ‘mixed-race’ groups has been added to, with further complications and extensions which may find resonance with the experience of other groups of mixed identity.

Conclusion The identity of Anglo-Indians is complex and complicated, but on a day-­ to-­day basis fails to indicate that they are in crisis about who they are individually or as a community. Due to their strong sense of being part of a distinct group that has existed for some centuries, many of the aspects usually associated with mixed communities are not relevant to them, such as being confused about their identity due to having to choose between one or the other of their ‘mix’. Anglo-Indians do not, as some early scholars of ‘mixed-race’ suggest, need to select from their heritages for their own identity, rather they claim to be Anglo-Indian as a distinct identity. Those who write about an Anglo-Indian identity crisis inferring that they 21  The film Bow Barracks Forever (2007) mentioned earlier is one example of an industry which portrays Anglo-Indians negatively, as do many examples of literature featuring AngloIndians. It is outside the scope of this chapter, however, to address this here.

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are conflicted between being Indian or ‘British’ are operating out of a particular model of ‘mixed-race’ identity that has been superseded by more complex and nuanced models. The binary of Indian versus British is not relevant and those who see their identity in this way have misunderstood their adherence to Western practices and characteristics. That they retain them does not mean they are aspiring to be something they’re not, rather it is a sign that they are maintaining and augmenting their AngloIndianness in contemporary India.

References Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso. Andrews, R. (2014). Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian Stories and Essays. Sage. Andrews, R. (2015). Report on the 2010/2011 West Bengal Anglo-Indian Survey: ‘Anglo-Indians Count’. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 15(2). Andrews, R. (2018). Anglo-Indians: Buying into Nationhood? In I.  Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography (pp. 429–445). Palgrave Macmillan. Anthony, F. (1969). Britain’s Betrayal in India. Allied Publishers. Bandyopadhyay, D. (2011). Locating the Anglo-Indian Self in Ruskin Bond: A Postcolonial Review. Anthem Press. Barth, F. (1969). Ethnic Groups and Ethnic Boundaries: The Social Organisation of Culture difference. George Allen and Unwin. Bear, L. (2007). Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self. In N. Dirks (Ed.), Cultures of History. Columbia University Press. Blunt, A. (2002). ‘Land of our Mothers’: Home, Identity, and Nationality for Anglo-Indians in British India 1919–1947. History Workshop Journal, 54, 49–72. Blunt, A. (2003). Collective Memory and Productive Nostalgia: Anglo-Indian Homemaking at McCluskieganj. Environment and Planning D-Society & Space, 21(6), 717–738. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Blackwell. Caplan, L. (2001). Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Post-Colonial World. Berg. Dutt, K.  L. (1990). In Search of a Homeland: Anglo-Indians and McCluskiegunge. Minerva. Dutt, A. (2007). Bow Barracks Forever. Pritish Nandy Communications.

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Erikson, E.  H. (1970). Notes on the Identity Crisis. The Making of Modern Science: Biographical Studies (Fall, 1970), pp. 730–759. Daedalus, 99(4). Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Cornell University Press. Gilbert, D. (2005). Interrogating Mixed-Race: A Crisis of Ambiguity? Social Identities, 11(1), 55–74. Hawes, C. (1993). Eurasians in British India, 1773–1833: The Making of a Reluctant Community. PhD, University of London. Hawes, C. (1996). Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India 1773–1833. Curzon Press. Lahiri, S. (2000). Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity 1880–1930. Frank Cass. Mahar, R. (1962). These are the Anglo-Indians. Sona Printers. Massey, D.  S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., & Taylor, J. E. (1998). Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium. Claredon Press. Mills, M. (1998). Ethnic Myth and Ethnic Survival: The Case of India’s Anglo-­ Indian (Eurasian) Minority. PhD, York University. Mitra, S. (2010). Citizenship in India: Some Preliminary Results of a National Survey. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(9), 46–53. Moch, L.  P. (2005). Gender and Migration Research. In M.  Bommes & E. T. Morawska (Eds.), International Migration Research (pp. 95–110). Ashgate. Mohan, R. V. (1987). Identity Crisis of Sri Lankan Muslims. Mittal Publications. Nagel, J. (1994). Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture. Social Problems, 41(1), 152–176. https://doi. org/10.2307/3096847. Pereira, A. (1997). The Revitalisation of Eurasian Identity in Singapore. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 25(2), 7–24. Rockquemore, K. A., Brunsma, D. L., & Delgado, D. J. (2009). Racing to Theory or Retheorizing Race? Understanding the Struggle to Build a Multiracial Identity Theory. Journal of Social Issues, 65(1), 13–34. Sökefeld, M. (1999). Debating Self, Identity, and Culture in Anthropology. Current Anthropology, 40(4), 417–448. https://doi.org/10.1086/200042. Stark, H. (1926). Hostages in India: Or the Life Story of the Anglo-Indian Race. Fine Arts Cottage Press. Williams, B. R. (2002). Anglo-Indians: Vanishing Remnants of a Bygone Era. CTR Publishing.

CHAPTER 6

Citizenship, Legitimacy, and Identity: Kolkata Anglo-Indian Experiences Robyn Andrews

Introduction Since Indian Independence over 70 years ago, the situation for Anglo-­ Indians in India has varied immensely, waxing and waning mostly in response to circumstances beyond their control.1 India’s current ruling political party, for example, with its barely concealed Hindu nationalist agenda is adding to an (arguably) existing sense of insecurity for this minority Christian community. Yet, within the mostly Hindu milieu of the Indian nation, there are Anglo-Indians who are going from strength to A version of this chapter was first published in 2018 as: Citizenship and Legitimacy: Kolkata Anglo-Indian Experiences in In I. Pardo. and G. B. Prato (Eds.), Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1  Varied external influences have almost always been experienced by members of the community, but there are specific influences during the time period covered in this chapter.

R. Andrews (*) Social Anthropology Programme, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_6

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strength in their professional and personal lives and are more likely to identify primarily as ‘Indian’. There are also those whose primary allegiance is to community, rather than the nation, with their lives being better through community social service organisations provisioning of them—both materially and emotionally. In this chapter, I outline the situation for Anglo-Indians, particularly those in Kolkata, by describing relevant aspects of the Indian political situation, such as the Indian Constitution definition of citizenship, Indian’s distinct version of secularism, and the nationalist agenda of the current ruling party. I discuss particular threats to Anglo-Indians’ sense of belonging to India, and to identifying as Indian, and present two examples which illustrate the strategies that may be employed in carving out a legitimate place to belong within India. One example lies within the being of a person; the current president-in-chief of the All India Anglo-Indian Association (AIAIA) whose home is Kolkata; and the other is an organisation, Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society (CAISS). The former demonstrates the conditions that allow for a position of legitimacy and power within the community and the nation. The latter illustrates how an organisation can work with and for their community to make a space for community members to feel at home and cared for, with access to some power. As I will demonstrate, in one case the person has the political wherewithal and accumulated capitals (in the Bourdieuian sense (1984, 1986)) and cosmopolitanism to negotiate his own way, whereas the other works outside the broader political system and offers a unique and invaluable service to Kolkata’s Anglo-Indians. The two examples draw out different aspects of what legitimacy looks like, or what it lacks, in this socio-political space. The type of legitimacy I address in this chapter is concerned with citizenship, and the consensus about whose worldviews and practices are endorsed and recognised by the nation as acceptable—socially and individually; see also, Pardo (2018) who addresses similar issues, in his case, in Naples. It is also about who has power, and how tactics and strategies can be activated to achieve influence in particular situations. India has been known for its accommodation of diverse worldviews and practices, that is, for a tolerance of difference leading to relative lack of conflict or competition over the legitimacy of different socio-cultural and religious practices. As I discuss further along, this appears to have altered over the past few years, with the current government demonstrating that some ways of being are more acceptably ‘Indian’ than others. This sets up a structure entailing one set of practices being seen and felt as more legitimate than another. Abraham’s (2018) work in villages in Kerala, Boucher’s

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(2018) in a central civic square in Montreal, and Pardo’s (2018) work in Naples also provide ethnographic examples illustrating that in certain situations this is the case—that there is not the same access to a legitimate position for all; rather, a zero-sum game situation operates. That is, legitimacy can be seen as being a  finite  resource, so when one group gains, another loses. Conflicting claims to (or views of) legitimacy, with different agents competing for the same space, may result in one being deemed more legitimate, while another’s claim to legitimacy is eroded.

Citizens as the Responsibility of the State Pardo and Prato write about the nation’s responsibility to offer their citizens a sense of legitimate belonging, stating that the ‘key task of governance is to establish and nurture the connection with citizens’ values, needs and expectations, the strength of which depends upon the observable quality of the link between political responsibility and trust and authority in the exercise of power’ (2010, p. 1). This addresses the concerns of this chapter and the reliance of citizens on their government to provide a secure socio-political environment. But what happens when that is not provided? Prato (2018) addresses such issues offering a comparative analysis of: (1) ‘the relationship of representation (between rulers and the ruled), the ethics of responsibility of elected politicians and the legitimacy of decision-making’ in Italy (and what happens when people start questioning such legitimacy); and (2) ‘the extent to which a written Constitution and democratic institutions actually guarantee citizens’ rights and their participation in the new social and political order’ in Albania. Additionally, in an earlier publication, she discusses the new democratic state of Albania in the context of its failure to guarantee the wellbeing of its citizens (Prato 2010). Ghassan Hage (2003) also writes about situations when the state does and does not offer security to its citizen. In writing about the obligations of the state to its citizens, he compares the nation to a caring breastfeeding mother who through her action gives her child both nourishment and a sense of attachment and security. He argues that with such a successful caring role the nation can engender in its citizens a similar level of returned care, along with security, such that if there is some sort of threat, this will cause worry (as for a small child if their mother is absent longer than expected), but not develop into an entrenched ‘culture of national worrying’ (2003, p. 1). He adds, that when worrying about the nation becomes

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the prevailing mode of relationship with the nation this ‘exerts a form of symbolic violence over the field of national belonging’ (Bourdieu 1991 cited by Hage 2003, 1). Hage describes ‘the significance of the relation of care that can exist between the nation and its citizens’ (2003, p. 1), arguing that it is a reflection of the ‘quality of the relation between the nation and its citizens’ and determines the way threats are felt by citizens. Prato makes a similar point by arguing that ‘the relationship between government and citizens needs to be conceived—and acted upon—as a relationship of reciprocity’ (2018, p. 54). Hage also argues that ‘by being a mechanism for the distribution of social opportunities, society operates as a distributor of social hope among the population it encompasses’ (2003, p. 2), and that ‘hopefulness is above all a disposition to be confident in the face of the future, to be open to it and welcoming to what it will bring, even if one does not know for sure what it will bring’ (Averill et al. 1990, cited by Hage 2003 p. 2). Later in the chapter I look at threats and possible threats Anglo-Indians are faced with, which counter a sense of citizenship, that is, of feeling fully embraced by India as home. Firstly though I will lay out reasons Anglo-­ Indians may have initially felt insecure, then somewhat ameliorated in post-independent India through the establishment of constitutional provisions to protect them. I then discuss who is able to claim citizenship in India, and India’s unique take on secularism which was designed to protect all citizens—minorities and the majority alike.

Securities and Insecurities Socially and culturally, Anglo-Indians are habitually more western than Indian in their practices and world views, for example, they are Christians, mostly have English as their mother tongue, and they have European names. Another characteristic is that those in India have a culture of migration, or as Caplan puts it, an ‘culture of emigration’ (1995, 2001). This is based in large part on more than half of the population leaving India since India gained its independence from Britain in 1947. A major migratory wave, sometimes referred to as the ‘second wave’, coincided in the 1960s with a move in India to replace English as the national language. The prospect of Hindi as the sole national language was a concern to AngloIndians as they mostly did not speak the language well enough for employment and other purposes. Other reasons for the migration at this time

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have been attributed to the closure of large international companies in the main centres where many Anglo-Indians had employment2 and the expiry of employment quotas. The culture of emigration is so pervasive that Anglo-Indians who stayed in India, who may number up to 500,000,3 are frequently referred to as having been ‘left behind’. Migrants who left, and are still leaving, mostly do so because they feel insecure about what the future in India offers themselves and their children, especially in terms of maintaining their lifestyles and cultural practices, obtaining meaningful employment, and finding socio-culturally suitable marriage partners. Many of the early migrants were afraid of negative repercussions after centuries of aligning themselves with the British during Raj times. Mostly then, their migration was driven by a complex combination of economic, political, and cultural insecurity. As several chapters in this volume have detailed, rather than reprisals for their affiliation with Britain, there were constitutionally stipulated benefits for Anglo-­ Indians with the first post-independence Congress-led government. These included ‘employment quotas’, political representation at state and national level, and support for Anglo-Indians schools.

Background to Constitutional Provisions It has been unclear to many Anglo-Indians, including scholars, why Congress leaders in setting up the new independent government and constitution were willing to grant provisions to Anglo-Indians in the context of curtailing and reducing measures for most other groups. Uther Charlton-Stevens suggests (in personal communication 30 May, 2017) it related to wider minority politics. In his D.Phil. thesis, Charlton-Stevens (2012) states the provisions in the constitution were effectively secured by the Anglo-Indian, Frank Anthony, acting at the time in his role of president-in-chief of the AIAIA and MP (Lok Sobha), by appealing to the Congress government. He was apparently surprised by the generosity of  This issue was highlighted to me by Anglo-Indians I interviewed (e.g. in Melbourne in 2007) about their reasons for coming to Australia and is noted by Blunt (2005, p.156). 3  The number of Anglo-Indians is unknown due to not being officially enumerated separately in the ten yearly national census since 1951. This estimate is based on Frank Anthony’s population estimate (Anthony 1969), and recent updates by Kerala’s Anglo-Indian association which estimates several hundred thousand in that state alone. Estimates of the population in Kolkata range from 30,000 individuals to 30,000 families. 2

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the Congress government (2012, p. 350) in terms of the scope of provisions made, which included the renewal of quotas and the ability to run their own schools. He notes that while provisions were made, no funds were offered in support. Charlton-Stevens also documents that Gidney, during his tenure as president-in-chief in the 1930s and into the very early 1940s, had appealed to the soon to be departing British government for security through a range of means (some contradictory), for example, for an ease of migration limitations for Anglo-Indians to go to the dominions and for the ability to set up homelands within India.4 At the same time, Gidney also began applying pressure on Anglo-Indians to consider themselves citizens of India (Charlton-Stevens 2012, p. 293). A cynical analysis of this latter strategy is to see this as a ploy to keep sufficient Anglo-Indians in India for him to be the president-in-chief of something. Gidney died in 1942, and Anthony took over as president-in-chief and reversed any ideas for emigration that Gidney had been supporting and/or seeking (Charlton-Stevens 2012, p. 301). Gidney and Anthony both appealed to the Anglo-Indians to ‘make India home’ but in different ways. Gidney was still looking for a homeland, hoping that such an entity would be ruled by the British, but Anthony took the nationalist route, appealing to Anglo-Indians to consider India their home and identify as ‘Indian by nationality, and Anglo-­ Indian by community’.

Anglo-Indians as Constitutional Citizens5 There is no question that Anglo-Indians are Indian citizens, meeting the ‘birth’ criteria embedded in the Constitution. According to the political scientist, Subrata Mitra, the main articles of the Indian Constitution ‘abjured racial purity in favour of birth and residence on the soil of India’ (Mitra 2010, p. 46) with the 5th Article of the Constitution stating that: 5. At the commencement of this Constitution, every person who has his [sic] domicile in the territory of India and— 4  A prevailing myth is that if Churchill had not lost the 1945 English General Election Anglo-Indians would have achieved this in the Andaman Islands or in the Seychelles (Charlton-Stevens 2012, p. 286). 5  This section draws from  my chapter in  The Palgrave Handbook of  Urban Ethnography (Andrews 2018).

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(a) who was born in the territory of India; or (b) either of whose parents was born in the territory of India; or (c) who has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India for not less than five years immediately preceding such commencement, shall be a citizen of India. Mitra, in discussing the results of four questions on citizenship in a 2009 Indian National Election survey, posits the theory that in a post-­ colonial state such as India there are overlapping legal and moral categories in the relationship between citizenship and identifying with the society, such that, ‘Just as the legal right to citizenship is accorded by the state, identity, and following from it, the moral right to belong, is what people give to their claims to citizenship’ (Mitra 2010, p.  47). He further explains that: When both converge in the same group, the result is a sense of legitimate citizenship where the individual feels both legally entitled and morally engaged. If not, the consequences are either legal citizenship devoid of a sense of identification with the soil, or a primordial identification with the land but no legal sanction of this. (2010, p. 47 emphasis mine)

The study Mitra writes of identifies survey participants in different ways: by community, geographic location (including urban and rural), age, caste, class, and gender. Anglo-Indians, like many other minority communities, are not identified in the survey, so responses to the types of questions asked in order to ascertain the sense of citizenship across Indian nationals are not able to be extrapolated specifically for Anglo-Indians. Although Anglo-Indians are the only community in India to have ‘Indian’ in their name, the category of ‘legal citizenship devoid of a sense of identification with the soil’ would likely have applied to many, evidenced by their ‘migration’ culture. A challenge to citizenship for Anglo-­ Indians is that they feel culturally different to others born in the nation (this is not a feeling that is held by Anglo-Indians only, members of other minority groups are also likely to feel this way in the Hindu majority– Muslim minority political space). Generally, as concisely summarised by Pardo and Prato ‘citizenship ought to serve the purpose of establishing belonging to a specific group and defining the identity of its members’ (Pardo and Prato 2010, p. 10). This does not necessarily imply an ideal degree of homogeneity amongst its members, which is not in fact the case

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in India, but it usefully outlines reasonable expectations.6 The issue of India’s diversity and maintenance of some form of unity all the same is addressed by Shani (2010), amongst other Indian scholars who she refers to. She argues, drawing on the experiences of Muslims—the largest of India’s minority groups—that for all the diversity, India’s enactment of secularism7 means that there are strategies available for all to feel a part of the nation so that, [b]y negotiating and balancing distinct overlapping conceptions for competing membership claims in the nation, diverse social groups could find a viable place in the nation, without entirely compromising their various group identities. (2010, p. 146)

The ability to practice various religions and ways of life is, in theory at least, protected. At the time the Constitution was formulated, protection for minorities was built in through a distinct take on secularism which should protect Anglo-Indians and other minorities.

Secularism in India In India, unlike in other places where secularism is understood to mean there is a separation of the state from religion, it means that the state acts as a patron to all religions equally. The Congress party which safeguarded this ideal by enshrining it in the Constitution also enacted it. As I discuss next, the current party in power, the BJP, is pro-Hindu and many have become quite cynical about their will to uphold any sense of secularism as it should be interpreted through the Constitution. The idea of ‘India for Hindus’ is rampant and corrosive for all minority communities, including Christian, and Anglo-Indians within that religious group. Bengali political scientist Partha Chatterjee says that the term was very deliberately taken up and written into the Constitution, and it remained so when he wrote: ‘The continued use of the term secularism is, it seems to me, an expression of the desire of the modernizing elite to see the “original” meaning of the concept actualized in India. The resort to “new meanings” is, to invoke Skinner’s point once more, a mark of the failure of this attempt’ (Chatterjee 6  There are other scholars, such as Brubaker (1998), who also write about citizenship, emphasising the characteristic of membership of the nation, that is, arguing that citizenship is synonymous with a sense of nationhood (1998, pp.133–134). 7  India’s unique enactment of secularism is discussed in more detail shortly.

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1995, p. 15). Chatterjee also notes that ‘Important for our purpose is a discussion of how the nationalist project of putting an end to colonial rule and inaugurating an independent nation-state became implicated, from its very birth, in a contradictory movement with regard to the modernist mission of secularization’ (1995, p. 15). In theory, this inclusion in the Constitution should provide protection for Anglo-Indians and other minorities. In practice, however, Anglo-­ Indians (unlike many others, including Indian Christians) have names that immediately indicate that they are not Hindu, which in the current political environment, can potentially cause problems for them. Some I have spoken to feel this disadvantage manifests, for example, in the job market. I was told that as soon a potential employer reads the European name of a job applicant, they exclude them. This discrimination is not something they feel they can address by any legal means, for all the Constitution of India advocates a version of secularism which ought to offer them such protection. Whether a place in the nation is made available to diverse citizenry is, however, dependent on the political situation.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) In May 2014, after more than 60 years of almost exclusively, Congress-led central governments, the Bharatiya Janata Party (translated as The People’s Party) was elected, in what has been described as a landslide victory.8 In May 2019 they were re-elected with an even greater majority. The party is led by Narendra Modi, former Chief Minister of Gujarat. This is a right wing, sometimes described as Hindu-chauvinist, party known for its commitment to Hindutva (i.e. an ideology seeking to establish the hegemony of Hindus and the Hindu way of life9), with its policy historically reflecting Hindu nationalist positions. It promotes the idea of ‘India for Hindus’ and has implemented Hindu ideals in a number of states where BJP are also the ruling state party. In the states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, for example, legislation has closed slaughter houses as cow slaughter is

8  They were part of a coalition government in 1998 for a year, then again in coalition for a full term until 2004. 9  Something similar happens also in Western democracies where political parties with strong ideological positions seek to impose their views and ways of life and may even change the legislation accordingly. See, for example, Pardo (2018).

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forbidden, beef is forbidden to be offered in restaurants, and they have launched a campaign of ‘reconversion’ of Christians and Muslims.10 Anglo-Indians in Kolkata may be buffered from the immediate effects of the BJP national government through their non-BJP state governing party,11 but this changed political situation represents, for many Anglo-­ Indians, a moment of increased concern on a par with that of independence, and then reemphasised in the 1960s. At those earlier times, Anglo-Indian migration from India was viewed as a rational and obtainable solution. Migration is now much more difficult due to potential host countries’ tighter entry controls.

Demonetisation Leading to Further Erosions There are other recent circumstances which also erode Anglo-Indians sense of being valued citizens of India. One that relatively recently fuelled a sense of despair at ‘not mattering’ to the state, was India’s ‘demonetisation’ policy. While not aimed at Anglo-Indians, rather, all of India was demonetised, this added enormous stress to many Anglo-Indians.12 On 8 November 2016, the Government of India announced the demonetisation of all current (Indian Rupee) ₹500 (US$7.80) and ₹1000 (US$16) banknotes, that is, they would be withdrawn with immediate effect. The official reason for this was to curtail the underground economy and the use of counterfeit cash to fund illegal activity and terrorism. An additional reason I heard at the time included the government’s desire to be a player in the global economy, along with the other modern nations of the world 10  In a campaign speech in Goa, delivered in January 2014 while I was in the state carrying out fieldwork, Modi undertook to make Goa ‘an exception’ in terms of freedom of religious practice, if his party was elected. Perhaps he recognised that most Goans had not ‘converted’ in their lifetimes, so reconversion was not appropriate. The 25% Christian population statistic may also protect it from Hindu nationalist policies which are being imposed in other parts of the country in the wake of the Modi-led BJP government. What is concerning is the potential plight of non-Hindus in other states of India in not being offered this ‘exception’ in protection of their religious freedom. 11  After presenting an earlier draft of this chapter at the IUS workshop in Sicily, 2017, a participant noted that Kolkata’s Anglo-Indians might be more sheltered from BJP policies than other Anglo-Indians. Their numbers, and more prominent positioning, in combination with the city’s cosmopolitanism were all thought to play a part in this situation. 12  The Indian government had demonetised bank notes on two prior occasions—once in 1946 and then in 1978—and in both cases, the goal was to combat tax evasion by the use of ‘black money’ held outside the formal economic system.

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(as they did by ‘officially’ abolishing caste and dowry earlier too) to be seen as an equal in being a cashless society, or at least a less-cash society. As documented in the media (including social), over the weeks immediately following demonetisation, the sudden nature of the announcement, and the severe and prolonged cash shortages in the weeks that followed, created significant disruption throughout the economy, threatening economic output and was the cause of widespread personal hardship. The move was heavily criticised as poorly planned and unfair, and was met with protests, litigation, and strikes. This situation has parallels with aspects addressed by Atalay (2018) on the questioned legitimacy in the economic field in Turkey.13 People seeking to exchange their bank notes had to stand in lengthy queues, as described by Anglo-Indians I spoke with over that period, for example, this young man who told me about his mother’s experience. She is the family’s only source of income: It was so much of a problem to go to the bank and stand in the queue every single day. My Mum went for 11 days. For her money. For her salary. She had to wait 11 days. And we had to go on loans to all the men. We had to go to all the people asking for help for the time being.

People had 6 weeks to deposit their large denomination notes, or they would lose them as they became completely worthless. A bank account was required for this though, and many people in India do not have one for various reasons, for example, if they do not have a valid identity card they cannot open a bank account,14 and daily wage workers and others had not, until then, needed an account. This situation affected the poorest people the most. There were also severe withdrawal restrictions. Some withdrawal exceptions were made, such as for wedding expenses and for farmers’ crop-­ related costs. Social service organisations, such as the Anglo-Indian one I discuss shortly, were not provided with any withdrawal exemptions, so they were unable to meet their obligations to provide monthly benefits to 13  Atalay (2018) looks at financialization and its impact on people’s everyday life also in the social, cultural and political fields. 14  In the West Bengal city of Asansol over 80% of those Anglo-Indians surveyed had a Voter Identity Card, compared with the finding of the Kolkata part of the survey which indicated that only 66% have them. See survey report for more details (Andrews 2015). I was told by Kolkata Anglo-Indians that there are obstacles to getting them, such as bribes required at certain points in the process, which put them off proceeding.

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their beneficiaries, or hold their planned Christmas-related events in the ways they had expected. This led to increased financial hardship and suffering, particularly for the poorest of the community in a country where there is no state welfare or pension provisions to cater to them. I spoke with Anglo-Indians who felt desperate and powerless over this time, not only in terms of obtaining daily nourishment but because they could not purchase essentials they relied on, such as medications. One frail elderly Anglo-Indian man, for example, told me of his fear that without medications his ‘sugar’ would rise to dangerously high levels, and that he would not be able to survive that. He showed me his bank account booklet, which indicated that he had a small balance of savings, but he said that he could not manage standing in the long queues to withdraw any of that money. It was not possible for a proxy to withdraw money at that time when the banks were under so much pressure. The strategies employed by some of the more desperate of these people to try to get some money were to approach money lenders, friends, and organisations. I have never been asked for money as often as I was over this time. Anglo-Indians felt that the timing of demonetisation was particularly cruel to them and to other Christians. It was after the Hindu festival of Diwali and the Muslim observation of Eid, but before Christmas. They often added that it did disadvantage people of all communities who were having weddings (it was wedding season) although the ‘exception’ to withdraw ₹2.5 Lakh (100,000) for a wedding helped. Even some Anglo-Indians who were better off and less affected by the policy said that they felt an extreme lack of confidence in the government. One middle-class Anglo-Indian said he was disgusted by what happened and that he was going abroad to wait it out, which he did. Having outlined aspects of the socio-political context for Anglo-­ Indians, and sources of their social precarity, I turn now to the two examples for a close examination of potential strategies Anglo-Indians employ, or have at their disposal to employ.

Example #1: The Current President-in-Chief of the AIAIA Barry O’Brien is a name known in Anglo-Indian circles throughout the country. I spent time working with him on a survey project in 2010 to 2011 and at the conclusion of the project I interviewed him. I include his

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story to demonstrate that although his life may be uniquely privileged, it illustrates the potential of Anglo-Indians to thrive in modern India. When I formally interviewed Barry in 2011 he had recently completed a 5-year term as MLA representing West Bengal’s Anglo-Indians. In addition, his father, Neil O’Brien, had been the president-in-chief of the All India Anglo-Indian Association since 1993, and Barry’s older brother, Derek, had been appointed an MP for Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party. The party achieved a landslide victory in 2011, bringing to an end the 34-year governance of the CPI(M) (Communist Party of India (Marxist)) party. I was interested in hearing Barry’s story for two reasons—one was his family’s prominence, the other was that he struck me as being unusual for an Anglo-Indian in being completely comfortable in a Bengali world. When I made this observation to him he explained that it was the result of his family history and the environment he was brought up in, so this is where I asked him to begin his account. The following is mostly in his words: Ours was one of the first few buildings in the Ballygunge area. It was really the wilderness there then. Apparently, you could hear the jackals. And gradually [the area] sort of mushroomed and grew into a very traditional middle-­ class Bengali locality, a safe secure typical Bengali locality. This is where my father grew up. After some time, my father got married to an Anglo-­ Indian lady.

Barry then describes the more ‘typical’ Anglo-Indian background of his mother before she moved into the Bengali area where Barry was also raised: She was an absolutely railway colony Anglo-Indian. She’s from all over because they moved around. My grandfather [had] picked up many languages, including Bengali. When he was posted at Garden Reach he picked up Bengali, then Telegu when he was posted in Andra Pradesh. So, she had a varied experience as she was growing up. I mean varied as in sometimes they were living just outside a jungle, sometimes they were in a big, or a smallish town. Anyway, it was a very different upbringing from my father. (…) When they got married they lived with my great-grandmother and that’s where we were born. And we were the only non-Bengali family.

I asked him to describe his early years in more detail, as they were markedly different from the experience of most Anglo-Indian youth of that

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time, who grew up in neighbourhoods with other Anglo-Indians to mix with. Those Anglo-Indians were also more likely to be excluded (or to exclude themselves) from other community interaction: There are three of us. All born one after the other, 1961, 1962, 1963 and we were the only non-Bengali family. Forget about anything else—there were only Bengalis. After a while a few others came in, but we were certainly the only Christian family, and the only Anglo-Indian family. We literally grew up playing cricket on the streets, playing football on the streets, participating in everything that the local boys did. And we never held back, and neither did our parents hold us back. They allowed us to participate in everything. I mean it was a social participation. So, we were back from school by four o’clock and immediately we were out on the road playing because we didn’t have a park. So we would play all these games with these boys. We interacted with them for a couple of hours every day and therefore learnt to speak good Bengali.

Barry talked about the employees of his household who were from other communities and noted that his interaction with them assisted his vernacular language acquisition. Many Anglo-Indians had this experience of domestic help from other communities too, but perhaps not at the level he experienced: In India we have the great blessing of many people who need to be employed in homes, so we always had two or three domestic help and they were Bengalis so we were spending even more time interacting in Bengali. And that’s the best way to learn a language. I think a language breaks down many barriers and puts people at ease. So, I think more and more Anglo-Indians should know a language, besides English, really well.

He offers advice to others: to gain local language proficiency in order to get ahead, as well as holding strong to personal cultural practices, and to learn about and interact with other communities in their festival times: I’ve noticed that Anglo-Indians in India who have known the regional language or Hindi fluently, whichever’s the most widely spoken language in that State, they’ve gone much further in many ways than the Anglo-Indian who hasn’t. It’s a bit of a generalisation but I have seen that happen. And also, whenever we had a function, Christmas Day or whatever, my mother

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would go around with cakes and whatever else to every single home in the area. And our neighbours would actually see priests coming for a family prayer, and they would see the huge Christmas celebrations. We’re the only ones here, so would we underplay it? No way, no way. We used to put up our little nativity scene for the Christmas season and they all come to see it. There are lights on our family home for three or four weeks. She was trying to match their [Hindu festival] Puja lights. When they’re on there’s a lot of lights over here. When they used to organise Kali Pujas, which is really like a community event, we would be involved. We’d sit down with them, near the pandal, the structure near their statue. Obviously, as very staunch Christians and Catholics, for us it was just a social thing. But just the fact that we were with them, it just made us one of them and, you know, we were always treated well. In fact, for many years I was in charge of organising things for it. After the Puja, the statues, the images of goddesses, would be immersed in the river. It takes a lot of organising to do that: you’ve got to organise the transport, the permissions etc., and for many years I was in charge of it. And I remember once actually, you know getting everything organised and then saying, ‘Okay, bye, see you guys. I’m going to Mass now.’

He was quite aware of his family’s situation of functioning in both an Anglo-Indian and a Bengali social world, both at a high socio-economic level, as is evident here: I think what was special about our family is we were able to live right in the midst of everything non-Anglo-Indian and enjoy it, be part of it, not in a superficial way, and yet really, really be Anglo-Indian.

He described the schools he attended, all elite Anglo-Indian-board English medium institutions which are sought after by all communities in Kolkata, and then went to Jadavpur University and completed a bachelor’s degree. He talked about his employment which saw him working mostly with non-Anglo-Indians again: The group I worked for [as a journalist] was Bengali. It was like the equivalent, in a Bengali sense, of working for Time Magazine or The Sunday Times in England, because they have the largest Bengali circulation here. And once again except for us blokes … within the office, amongst our friends we all spoke in English, but we’d speak in Bengali with the other departments, the computer department or the art department.

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Then I joined South Point School as a teacher. It’s not an ICSE15 school so they didn’t need more degrees than I had. I became the Assistant Principal of the school at a very young age. South Point at that time was the largest school in the world with 14,500 students. Guess what? No Anglo-Indians. Guess what? No Christians. 14,500 with a teaching staff of 450. So once again I was the only one, and I was in charge of discipline, and extra-­ curricular activities, so I was interacting a lot with parents. And therefore to make myself understood and to drive the point home I would speak to them in Bengali.

He reflected on the combination of elite influences in his early years in Kolkata: I think this whole mix has really been my education, you know, having the good fortune of having this huge mix, this background of St Columbus, St Xavier’s, La Martiniere, Jadavpur University, growing up in Ballygunge, going to the DI [Dalhousie Institute Club], then these schools that I taught at were all very conservative Bengali schools. So, you know, I’ve reached a stage, I hope nobody misunderstands, but when I speak in Bengali, I think in Bengali. To be good in a language I think that’s the ultimate. I mean when I speak Hindi I don’t think in Hindi. I translate. Fortunately for me my Hindi is pretty good also but it’s not as good as my Bengali, and all this has stood me in good stead. Now as the MLA obviously I speak in English when I speak in the Assembly, but that doesn’t stop me from occasionally giving an anecdote or a punch line, or something which I can’t translate, giving it in Bengali. And they all sort of like that. So we’re obviously a combination of the two sides, but most Anglo-­ Indians don’t know the other side. Anglo-Indians should be very proud of their Indian heritage.

Finally, I asked about his life now, married to his Anglo-Indian wife: I think because we share a commonality of looking in the same direction, wanting the same things out of life, you know, our faith, our religion, our community, our eating habits, the clothes that we wear … I think all this made it much easier. So hats off to the people who marry outside their community and their religion because I think it’s much more difficult, so all credit to them.  ICSE is the abbreviation for Indian Certificate of Secondary Education.

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While an MLA Barry belonged to the CPI(M) party which was the state government of the time. After the Trinamool Congress party came into power he was not nominated for the position of MLA. Some months after the BJP party was elected as the national government he joined that party. He explained to a workshop I attended that it was a very considered action which enabled him to serve the community most effectively by being closely aligned with the governing power. The last time I spoke to Barry was in January 2017, after his father had passed away, and after he had been appointed to his position, that of president-­in-chief of the AIAIA.  This was by vote (mostly proxy) not inheritance. The last three presidents-in-chief have been in office until they died. He says his will be a 3-year term. As indicated in the interview excerpts, he attributes his successes to early assimilation into a Bengali neighbourhood, which contributed to a sense of belonging to the nation through language and cultural ability and literacy/s. He also displays a strong sense of who he is as an Anglo-Indian, coupled with a secure personal identity through his family’s and his own achievements. Joining BJP gives him capacity for political action which he may not otherwise have had access to. While his may not be a common scenario, aspects of it are not unachievable for Anglo-Indians who might take note from his example in learning the local language well, understanding the cultural practices of their neighbours, achieving a sound education and taking employment opportunities. I turn next to the second example, that of an organisation I have spent a lot of time with in Kolkata, after first meeting their convenor, the late Philomena Eaton, in 2001.

Case Study #2: The Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society The Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society (CAISS) epitomises the style of charity that Anglo-Indians can find in the city. It is the organisation I have had the most interaction with over the years and it is exceedingly effective in the care it provides and the social networks it contributes to, both in and out of India. CAISS was established in 1976 and has a reputation of humanity and integrity—so much so that a number of overseas organisations have chosen to work exclusively through CAISS to distribute their donations to

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Anglo-Indians. Calcutta Tiljala Relief, (CTR) the US-based charity founded by Anglo-Indians Blair and the late Ellen Williams, for example, sent 2.4 lakh (2,400,000) rupees to India in 2012, with the allocation for Calcutta’s elderly Anglo-Indians being distributed through CAISS. Aspects of the way the organisation functions is reminiscent of Prato’s discussion of voluntary health care organisations in Albania (2010, p.  106). She writes about the need for organisations to be trustworthy in order for donors to assist them financially to provide services. One of CAISS’s later developments, the night shelter established well over a decade ago, has become a central focus of the organisation, with this space used to bring various people together along with providing housing for impoverished elderly Anglo-Indians who might otherwise sleep on the street. Others who use the space include office bearers for their frequent meetings, applicants for educational assistance who are interviewed in the downstairs offices, the youth group that meets regularly, and Anglo-Indians taking advantage of its vocational courses—for example, in computer training and sewing machine use. The venue is used for entertaining overseas visitors (mostly Anglo-Indians) with a meal and the opportunity to talk with those who are currently using the shelter. Visiting benefactors are often invited to help with the key activity of CAISS—its monthly ration and pension distribution sessions. During the 6 weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year, there are numerous events held by this social service society alone: during November they hold their ‘jumble’ (as they refer to the distribution of second-hand clothing and household soft furnishings), and organise the forthcoming events which include a carnival and fund-raising food festival very early in December, a fund-raising stall at a diocesan fair held at St Paul’s Cathedral grounds, their ‘Christmas tree’—an all-day Christmas party for about 900 of their Anglo-Indian beneficiaries, the late December dance for CAISS members (as opposed the beneficiaries), a lunchtime party for Anglo-­ Indian seniors between Christmas and New Year, a full day picnic early in the New Year for members. Over the Christmas season these events alone involve the interaction of many hundreds of Calcutta’s Anglo-Indians in one way or another, either as recipients or as providers and/or distributers of goods and services. As well as the seasonal events, monthly ration and pension distribution mornings for older beneficiaries are held, and evening sessions for educational assistance, vocational training, and medical assistance continues, along with running the night shelter.

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Although demonetisation affected CAISS’s ability to host some 2016 pre-Christmas events as planned, and they were unable to withdraw the cash they needed to distribute monthly pensions in cash on two occasions, they still did all they could for beneficiaries. They very quickly moved to an electronic system of pension payment wherever possible, helping those who did not have accounts to open one—suitable documentation facilitated that, otherwise they found other means to enable receipt of payments. Each of the events CAISS runs takes an enormous amount of organising by small groups of people, many of whom are also in paid employment and have family commitments. I wondered what motivates so much philanthropic activity within a relatively small community. An answer that many would give is that they are simply performing their Christian duty in caring for their poor. When CAISS was established they drew up a Constitution stating that the ‘prime objects for which the society is established are: (1) to endeavour to satisfy the educational, social, cultural and material needs of the Anglo-Indian community. (2) to prepare the youth of the Community to take an active and constructive role in the affairs of the Community and the Country. (3) to cultivate the highest ideals in business and professional occupations through Community Service activities. (4) to develop the fellowship of Anglo-Indians through the medium of the Society’s activities. (5) to foster a sense of Community consciousness and national pride. (6) to extend the services of the Society’ (Constitution and Articles of Association of The Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society 2013, 3). From this it is clear that their aims are more than community-centric; they also propose to prepare community members to be part of the nation. Through a well administered organisational ‘cuddle’, to use Hage’s term (2003), CAISS prepares the youth to be part of the nation through offering them a sense of security, while at the same time it takes care of those who are unable to extend their sense of self to a sense of being part of the nation. The institutional and personalised strategies CAISS employs ameliorate many Anglo-Indians’ feeling of being alienated by the nation, with their

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focus on engendering belonging to community. CAISS provides its members and beneficiaries with a sense of belonging to something that they identify with culturally, and of which they feel they are a legitimate member.

Conclusions What does legitimacy mean for those in my research, and how does it play out in how they identify? Do they, for example, identify primarily as Indian or as Anglo-Indian? I have argued that legitimacy is tied to citizenship and the feeling of being a valued and authentic member of the nation, with the freedom to live according to their cultural values. It has been, and still is, however, an uneasy and precarious road for many Anglo-Indians towards taking their place in the nation as Indian citizens. As a consequence, it does not take much to erode a sense of being legitimate citizens and claiming an ‘Indian’ identity. Demonetisation is just one example of the impact of a policy introduction which has a negative and unsettling impact. Of more significance is the Hindu nationalist agenda and associated policies which are felt as potential encroachments on community beliefs and ways of life. If this continues and India becomes more and more a Hindu nation, that change must erode, for non-Hindus such as Anglo-Indians, any sense of being a legitimate, valued, and authentic part of the nation. The genesis of Anglo-Indians marks their mixed descent, which is anathema to the Hindu ideology of purity. While this should not pose a threat to Anglo-Indians, given the Constitution definition of citizens of India along with the protection of secularism, the protections are currently being eroded with the effect that one group’s ideology and ways of life are being legitimised while others are delegitimised. Erosions to their sense of being part of the nation caused by the BJP government’s nationalist agenda can result in minority communities, such as the Anglo-Indians, feeling the precariousness of their social existence and way of life, for all the protections of secularism. As Hindus feel emboldened and their actions endorsed, other minority groups are losing their sense of legitimacy. What this indicates is that in certain situations legitimacy has a zero-sum game quality, in that as one group achieves greater legitimacy, other groups’ legitimacy is eroded. The fine-grained ethnographic study of the group focussed on in this chapter draws attention to both the precarity of their foothold in India, as well as to some possible strategies to enhance that. The two Kolkata-based examples demonstrate that there are ways in which Anglo-Indians can

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maintain or even augment their sense of belonging to, or in, India. As the first example showed, the adoption of a degree of assimilation, or majority cultural proficiency, is one alternative that may increasingly be taken up by well-educated Anglo-Indians. They can also (arguably simultaneously) embrace their Anglo-Indian-ness and align themselves with an organisation such as CAISS which provides the opportunity to fully engage in their own community.

References Abraham, J. (2018). Changing Contours of Legitimacy in Neighbourhoods: Reflections from a Town in North Kerala. In I. Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights. Palgrave Macmillan. Andrews, R. (2015). Report on the 2010/2011 West Bengal Anglo-Indian Survey: 'Anglo-Indians Count'. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 15(2). Andrews, R. (2018). Anglo-Indians: Buying into Nationhood? In I.  Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography (pp. 429–445). London: Palgrave Mcmillan. Anthony, F. (1969). Britain's Betrayal in India. Bombay: Allied Publishers. Atalay, Z.  N. (2018). Legal but Not Legitimate: The Changing Practices of Financial Citizenship in Turkey. In I. Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian women and the spatial politics of home. Blackwell. Boucher, N. (2018). Detachment and Commitment to Legitimacy: The Case of Viger Square in Montreal. In I.  Pardo & G.  B. Prato (Eds.), Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insight. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The Forms of Capital. Retrieved from Philosophy archive @ marxists.org website. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/reference/ subject/philosophy/works/fr/bourdieu-­forms-­capital.htm. Brubaker, R. (1998). Immigration, Citizenship, and the Nation-State in France and Germany. In G.  Shafir (Ed.), The Citizenship Debates (pp.  131–166). Minneapolis, MN: Uni of Minnasota Press. Caplan, L. (1995). 'Life is Only Abroad, Not Here': The Culture of Emigration among Anglo-Indians in Madras. Immigrants and Minorities, 14(1), 26–46. Caplan, L. (2001). Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Post-Colonial World. Oxford: Berg.

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Charlton-Stevens, U.  E. (2012). Decolonising Anglo-Indians: Strategies for a Mixed-Race Community in Late Colonial India During the First Half of the 20th Century. (DPhil.), University of Oxford. Chatterjee, P. (1995). Religious Minorities and the Secular State: Reflections on an Indian Impasse. Public Culture, 8, 11–39. https://doi.org/10.121 5/08992363-­8-­1-­11. Hage, G. (2003). On Worrying: The Lost Art of the Well-Administered National Cuddle. Borderlands, 2(1), 2. Mitra, S. (2010). Citizenship in India: Some Preliminary Results of a National Survey. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(9), 46–53. Pardo, I. (2018). Governance Without Legitimacy: An Italian Conundrum of Democracy. In I. Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pardo, I., & Prato, G.  B. (2010). Chapter 1 Introduction: Disconnected Governance and the Crisis of Legitimacy. In I.  Pardo & G.  B. Prato (Eds.), Citizenship and the Legitimacy of Governance in the Mediterranean Region. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Prato, G.  B. (2010). The ‘Costs’ of European Citizenship: Governance and Relations of Trust in Albania. In I. Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), Citizenship and the Legitimacy of Governance: Anthropology in the Mediterranean Region (pp. 100–115). Farnham: Ashgate. Prato, G. B. (2018). Legitimacy of Democratic Representation: Two Casestudies from Europe. In I. Pardo & G. B. Prato (Eds.), Legitimacy: Ethnographic and Theoretical Insights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Shani, O. (2010). Conceptions of Citizenship in India and the ‘Muslim Question’. Modern Asian Studies, 44(Special Issue 01), 145–173. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0026749X09990102. The Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society. (2013). Constitution & Articles of Association of CAISS: The Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society. Self-published.

PART III

Diasporic Identities

CHAPTER 7

Immigration Rhetoric and Public Discourse in the Construction of Anglo-Indian Identity in Britain Rochelle Almeida

Seventy years after they began to arrive en masse in the UK as Commonwealth immigrants, India’s Anglo-Indians still grapple with issues of identity. Their ambivalence about where they ‘belong’ and to whom they ought to owe national and cultural allegiance is exacerbated by the cyclical nature of discourse that has surrounded immigration in the UK since the mid-­ twentieth century. As attitudes towards immigrants have fluctuated, Anglo-Indians have become engulfed in wider debates that have focused on ‘multiculturalism,’ ‘nationalism’ and ‘integration.’ What makes matters even more problematic, in their case, as opposed to that of flows of various other South Asians who followed them into the UK through the latter half of the 1900s, is their mixed racial descent.1 1  These days opinion is divided as to whether Anglo-Indians ought to be defined in terms of their mixed racial heritage or their ethnicity. I prefer to refer to their racial uniqueness as a result of their essentially European paternity.

R. Almeida (*) New York University, Southport, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_7

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In the vast number of interviews I had conducted in the UK between 2008 and 2009 and for several summers thereafter, First Wave2 Anglo-­ Indians repeatedly stated that their mixed racial descent caused their sense of allegiance to remain constantly in flux and always in dispute. In the early years when their lives in Britain were fraught with anxiety, poverty and rejection, they experienced indecisive emotions—painful homesickness that made them yearn with nostalgia for the India they had left behind combined with bitter loyalty towards the country that had granted them settlement rights.3 With the passage of time it was perhaps inevitable that ties with their mother country would loosen and attachment to the host country develop. Indeed, as I have argued in my book,4 on the one hand, their integration has been so successful that they have evolved into a composite ethnic community that is so decidedly British as to have attained virtual invisibility, while, on the other hand, they have developed a brand of cultural communality that might best be described as ‘British Anglo-­ Indianness.’5 Given that it is generally accepted that the Anglo-Indian community is no longer counted amidst the South Asian diaspora in Britain, it is pertinent to question the roles played by race and skin colour in their attainment of integration over the last seven decades.

2  I define ‘First Wave’ settlers as those Anglo-Indians who arrived in the UK between the years 1948 (when the British Nationality Act of 1948 was passed) and 1962 (when the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed). 3  In her book Who Do We Think We Are? (2000: London, Allen Lane), journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, an immigrant of South Asian heritage from Uganda, hesitates to use the term ‘host’ nation to describe Great Britain as she states that the country and its people have, traditionally, been far from hospitable and, therefore, not deserving of that label. I shall, however, use the term ‘host’ nation when referring to the UK as the nation that received immigrants throughout the twentieth century. 4   See Almeida, R. (2017): Britain’s Anglo-Indians: The Invisibility of Assimilation. Maryland: Lexington Books. 5  For a longer discussion on what constitutes ‘British Anglo-Indianness,’ please see my book (End Note 4). It refers basically to the manner in which, after more than half a century in the UK, Anglo-Indians have absorbed essentially British morés into their cultural identity that now permit them to be differentiated from say Canadian Anglo-Indians or Australian Anglo-Indians.

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The 1950s: Ambivalence Following Post-colonial Prejudices and the Colour Bar In the era in which First Wave Anglo-Indians had arrived in their thousands in the UK (i.e. between 1948 and 1962 under the terms of the British Nationality Act, 1948 and until the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 19626), Britain was still reeling under economic losses of World War II and decolonization that followed it. In those years, public attitudes towards immigrants were influenced by colour prejudices as non-­ white people had, traditionally, been looked down upon as ruled subjects, subservient to the will of their white imperialist masters. Although racial segregation was never institutionalized in the UK in the way that it had been entrenched in the USA under Jim Crow Laws until the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s, the existence of a colour bar was evident everywhere. The ‘wheaten’ complexions of most Anglo-Indians brought them unwelcome visibility in that epoch and continued to affect them negatively throughout the 1940s and 50s. The fact that, unlike the West Indian immigrants who had begun to flow in after 1948 when the Empire Windrush arrived from Jamaica, Anglo-Indians could boast European paternity, played virtually no role in granting them social acceptability. They were perceived as being on a par with other ‘coloured’ settlers and were treated in the same prejudicial manner. Not merely did Britons of the mid-twentieth century not know who Anglo-Indians were, where and how they had originated as a distinct ethnic minority, and were, therefore, unwilling to accommodate them or their aspirations as new arrivals, but they had stereotypical ideas of what constituted Indianness. Thanks to popular literature such as the novels of Rudyard Kipling, people in Britain thought of Indians as practitioners of foreign religions, wearers of exotic garments, consumers of spicy food and speakers of indecipherable tongues. Although Anglo-Indians did not fit any of these pre-­ conceived notions of what constituted Indianness, their appearance did not immediately distinguish them from fictional representations of Indians and, therefore, they were perceived and treated as socially and racially inferior to the dominant community. Thus, the majority of First Wave settlers 6  The British Nationality Act of 1948 offered settlement rights in Britain to persons who were able to prove British paternity (through official documents). This provision remained active until the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 was passed to curtail such mass migration.

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believed that their mixed racial descent was of no help in making Britain their adopted home. Indeed, if anything, their mixed racial ancestry was a hindrance, they stated, for it caused misrecognition and misidentification (they were usually perceived as South Asians). An engineer from Essex originally from Vishakhapatnam stated, “The English were so confused about our hyphenated identity that I simply stopped referring to myself as an Anglo-Indian when questioned about my origin. I just told them that I am a Christian of Indian background.” Anglo-Indian ‘subjects’ who were a part of my study had mixed sentiments about their own community’s reaction to their initial reception in the UK. Some believe that if they had asserted their paternity more vociferously by mobilizing as a community, they would have been spared the challenges of seeking and finding employment and accommodation that had dogged them in the mid-twentieth century. Others argued that politicization of their position was not merely impossible in those early years (when they were too focused on mere survival to fight social injustice and racial stereotyping) but arguably also futile as prejudices regarding immigrants as ‘outsiders’ were based on far wider markers of identity than mere skin colour such as levels of economic prosperity. They point to the discrimination under which the Irish suffered at the same time in the UK, despite the fact that they were Caucasian, because they were poor and had immigrated to the UK to escape abject poverty in their own country. Their part-European birth notwithstanding, processes of the racialization of First Wave Anglo-Indians continued to structure unequal power relations that produced social inequalities. In such circumstances, it served Anglo-Indians little to claim that they were of mixed racial descent or that they had been able to prove British paternity to enter the UK as legal settlers. One could hardly expect post-war working-class Britons obsessed with national death and national debt to understand the intricacies of ethnicity—particularly when, as in the case of Anglo-Indians, ethnicity was complicated further by inter-racial co-habitation in the colonies. As such, First Wave Anglo-Indians claim that they ‘suffered’ as a result of misunderstanding and ignorance that looked upon all newly arrived emigres as socially inferior. A former female teacher from Igatpuri who settled down in Acton said, “How could I possibly tell the English who condescended to speak to me that my community was born following British colonization of India when their level of ignorance was so great that they had absolutely no idea that the British had colonies anywhere in the world? It

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was easier to let them think of us as Indians because we were of the same colour as the Hindu and Muslim Indians they saw around them.” With no recourse in sight by which to improve social perceptions, First Wave Anglo-Indians who arrived in the UK in the late 1940s and into the 1950s stopped explaining their complex racial origins and accepted the status quo. They appear to have given truth to Paul Gilroy’s contention that a post-race paradigm would slowly develop in which their racial heritage would cease to matter in their quest for a community identity (Gilroy 2001, 13). Torn between the two options of politicizing race by invoking it or abandoning it, First Wave Anglo-Indians seemed to have swung, pendulum-­like, between oscillating polarities. When it had suited them to politicize their mixed racial origins, they did so unabashedly. For example, their great love of Western music and dance had led them, from the late 1950s onwards and until recently, to organize exclusive Anglo-Indian ‘Dances’ (gala balls) because they were prevented at that time from entering local discotheques or clubs. In such situations, they asserted their racial difference and manifested it. On the other hand, where their origin in India could be seen as a disincentive, they erased it. According to Uther Charlton-Stevens (2018), many of them took to ‘passing,’ that is, denying their Indian birth and proclaiming themselves to be of Iberian heritage (Spanish or Portuguese). While this was easier for those born paler-­ skinned, others attempted to disguise or alter their Indian verbal accents in their battle against racial hierarchies. Anglo-Indian subjects repeatedly provided examples of relatives, former neighbours and friends who had erased Indian-inflected markers of identity and assumed those of their host nation in an effort to acquire social mobility. While many did so consciously, others internalized aspects of British identity by adopting them subliminally. Choosing to eat sausage rolls or fish and chips for dinner because they were easier to prepare than a curry would be one such example. In general, Anglo-Indians in Britain seem to have questioned and considered carefully the extent to which they would benefit by proclaiming or erasing their racial origin. Thus, they continued to be dogged by ambivalence in staking their racial position in British society.

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The 1960s: Imitation and Assimilation Amidst Anti-Immigration Rhetoric What is evident is that by the early 1960s, they stopped emphasizing or even referring to their complicated mixed racial descent and focused instead on finding social acceptance through imitation—what Homi Bhabha (1994) calls ‘mimesis’ (84–92). By becoming as much like their British hosts as possible, they attempted to blend in. Since it was also the era in which an ability to assimilate was demanded by the public and politicians in Britain of their immigrant settlers, Anglo-Indians complied. They became embroiled in the politics of the trendy catch-word of the time ‘assimilation’ which generally referred to a willingness on the part of immigrants to alter their native cultural morés in an attempt to fully blend into the larger cultural and social framework of the host nation. Assimilation through imitation did not demand too great an effort on the part of Anglo-Indians as they were a culturally Westernized people long before their arrival in Britain. In fact, even though they shared the same skin colour and Indian speech accents as the rest of their South Asian counterparts who had preceded them to Britain (mainly from Punjab during the early 1900s and those who would follow them into Britain in the 1960s from East Africa), it was in the long run, assimilation in general and Westernization in particular that bought them social acceptance and gradually rendered them invisible. As long as immigrants assimilated, they were tolerated. This acceptance, however, did not extend towards offers of employment in mainstream institutions. I interviewed at least five Anglo-­ Indian women who had served as teachers in Indian schools prior to their arrival in the UK. Despite applying repeatedly for teaching jobs, they were never invited to interview for them. On the rare occasion that they were extended an interview, they found out that their training and teaching credentials were not recognized in the UK. They were told that they were unsuitable for the position as it was feared their English pupils would not be able to understand their Indian accents.7 By the end of the 1960s, the public tide in terms of attitudes towards immigration turned rapidly and dramatically as East Africans of Indian heritage (predominantly Hindu and Muslim with some Goan Christian 7  Discrimination in the teaching profession was also experienced by Black Atlantic immigrants as delineated by the character Hortense in Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island (2010) London: Picador.

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presence) from former British colonies such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda flooded Britain. The journalist and public intellectual Yasmin Alibhai-Brown arrived in Britain from Uganda as a child as part of this significant flow. In her book, Who Do We Think We Are? (2000), she articulates the confusion of allegiance shared by members of her community— confusion that mirrors the sort of bewilderment that had also affected India’s Anglo-Indian settlers, a generation previously. Alibhai-Brown speaks of the awe and reverence with which East African Asians regarded the British empire and the royal family and their willing approximation, while they still lived in East Africa, of British ways of life. The Anglophilia experienced by brown-skinned East African Asians towards the British was similar to that felt by Britain’s Anglo-Indians. If Ugandan Muslims of South Asian origin felt a sense of solidarity with the British because they were Westernized, imagine how much more affiliated and racially superior Anglo-Indians (who could boast part-European parentage) felt in Britain when comparing themselves with other immigrants of the South Asian diaspora. The affiliation that former colonial subjects had with Britishness caused them to feel completely shocked and unnerved by the reaction of the British public when they arrived as settlers. After all, as Alibhai-Brown (2000) puts it, “Ugandan Asians were educated, skilled people who would become a success legend within twenty years” (73), unlike Anglo-Indians who, although having received Senior Cambridge education in India, lacked the business acumen and trading skills that East African Asians contributed to the British economy. Despite the wealth they brought into the UK (and continued to generate through their business enterprises), public resentment towards this newer flow of brown-skinned, African post-­ colonial settlers was initially vehement. Although Anglo-Indians had, by then, acculturated themselves substantially with the British way of life and had been accepted—albeit grudgingly—they were also affected by the backlash surrounding East African Asian immigration. As Alibhai-Brown (2000) writes: “The clumsy way public relations were handled made ethnic minorities already settled in this country feel vulnerable and humiliated” (73). Several Anglo-Indians in the UK expressed their view, during interviews, that the arrival of East African Asians complicated perceptions towards them. “Instead of creating in us a fellow feeling with these new and wealthy immigrants who could also trace their origin and parentage to the Indian sub-continent, we felt uneasy and insecure,” said a retired British Rail employee from Selhurst. “They drew attention to us all over

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again, just when we had begun to feel as if we had found our niche in England. As the debates about their presence continued in the press and on telly, we felt almost ashamed to be included among them as our skin colour and accents were similar.” Anglo-Indian discomfort with public attitudes in Britain towards immigrants would reach a crescendo by the late 1960s, when, in the midst of the noisy anti-immigration discourse, the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech was made in Birmingham by Labour leader Enoch Powell (1968) who brought issues of employment into the debate.8 He proposed a halt to immigration as he alleged that immigrants were robbing native Britons of job opportunities and rendering them redundant. And, for the first time, Powell drew attention to yet another aspect of immigration discourse that snowballed into significance when he referred, in the same speech, to “threats to national identity.” Up until that time, it was generally believed, as Robin Mann and Steve Fenton (2014) explain, that orientation to nation … could be traced to personal life-contexts of individual cases. Successful personal life-stories in respect of both career and interpersonal relations made for a calm and understated sense of English-­ British national identity. Unsatisfactory personal relationships (as evidenced by, for example, divorce), coupled with failed or relatively unfulfilled careers were coupled with resentful nationalist orientation. (154)

In fact, Mann and Fenton (2014) distinguish between what they term ‘Contentment’ versus ‘Resentment’ in the assumption of national identity. Those immigrants who quickly achieve success in their adopted environment manifest a contentment with their host nation and rapidly develop a national identity. When failure continuously dogs new immigrants—either because they lack credentials or are barred from achieving success by the dominant community—they become resentful of their new homes and their compatriots. Thus, the development of a national identity alludes them. Anglo-Indians who formed part of my study generally articulated a sense of contentment with the manner in which things gradually worked out for them, as well as with their current circumstances in the UK. Not 8  Powell, Enoch. The discourse that has become known as his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech was delivered on April 20, 1968, at a Conservative meeting in Birmingham. For full text, see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Bloodspeech.html.

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surprisingly, therefore, they have developed a national identity that is unequivocally British based on their eager and willing adoption of British ways of life. It is this same understanding of a national identity that liberal intellectuals like Bhikhu Parekh (1974) advocate for immigrants in Britain as he is of the firm opinion that it would enable them to feel perfectly at ease with their host nation and also cause them to be fully accepted by it. Unlike Anglo-Indians, however, and paradoxically enough, despite their infatuation with Anglophilia while they had still lived in their original countries and their adoption of Western dress, East African Asians were far more reluctant to embrace British manners and morés once they became settlers. The late 1960s saw Great Britain subscribe to the new morality that was sweeping the Western world in the wake of the Vietnam War, the women’s rights movement that was, in turn, strengthened by the medical invention of The Pill as delineated by Jonathan Eig (2017) and the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. When the conventions of a conservative society were threatened by Britain’s youthful population, newly arrived immigrants from conservative Hindu and Muslim backgrounds were reluctant to accept altered norms. Alibhai-Brown (2000) quotes Manjit Singh Gill, a small shopkeeper in Birmingham who told her that Asians did not want to “become British” because they had a poor opinion of British culture and morality and because “society was collapsing all around them” (90). Westernization had endowed Anglo-Indians with broad-­ minded attitudes towards dating and courtship and the looser morality of the era involving sex, drugs and rock and roll caused them concern but did not unduly alarm them. Hence, the societal upheavals of Britain in the 1960s did not influence or adversely affect their affiliation with their host nation. A female Anglo-Indian from Maidenhead who had emigrated to Britain at the age of 16 from the Kolar Gold Fields near Mysore told me that the 1960s were a most exciting time to be young and carefree in Britain. “Although our parents were worried that we would become corrupted by the attitudes espoused by cultural icons like the Beatles with their long hair and tight pants, we ignored their fears, adopted all the fashion high points of the time and blended in with the hip new Western outlook on life. Gradually our parents realized that it was the music and the attitude of freedom that we loved; not their questionable and dangerous lifestyle that included drugs and looser sexual morals. Also, I think it is important to note that although we, Anglo-Indians, loved Western music and

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dancing, we were quite conservative when it came to things like pre-­ marital sex or living together before marriage.”

The 1970s: Celebrating Multiculturalism In the course of time, by the late 1970s, the shot in the arm that East African Asians contributed to the British economy had a somewhat positive effect on the public. No longer viewed as ‘parasites’ on public social services, throughout the 1970s, these immigrants were perceived as responsible and productive members of British society—an attitude that also profited Anglo-Indians, who, as conformist holders of respectable jobs in government, had grown positively in public stature and perception. But, by the end of the 1970s, when the conservative Margaret Thatcher replaced the far more liberal Edward Heath as Prime Minister of Great Britain, public tide once again turned against immigrants. Alibhai-Brown (2000) quotes Philip Dodd (1995) who wrote: “Mrs. Thatcher’s Britishness … depended upon a sustained process of purification and exclusion.” (26–7) Alibhai-Brown further quotes Dodd (1995) who wrote: Mrs. Thatcher hardly invented such a strategy since Britishness has long worked on the principle of separating the inside sheep from the outside goats. Sometimes they have been Catholics, denied the vote, other times they have been Jewish people or, more recently, people from the Caribbean or Asia. While the groups may change, the principle does not—their presence threatens the historic identity of Britain. (26–7)

Anglo-Indians in Britain seemed less affected by the anti-immigrant rage that was wide-spread in the Thatcherite years than were their East African Asian counterparts. The reasons, by that stage, for their more favourable reception by mainstream Britons were that they had embraced Britishness with enthusiasm and, despite their skin colour, were no longer perceived as Other. Clearly, colour had ceased to matter as much as it had in the middle of the twentieth century. Issues of culture became far more pressing. Difference was celebrated as the race was on to make Great Britain a ‘multicultural’ society. Caroline Nagel and Lynn A.  Staeheli (2008) state that, In recognizing and accommodating differences in the public sphere, British multiculturalism has been viewed as an alternative to assimilation, a term

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that denotes the enforced conformity to dominant norms. But since its inception in the 1960s and 1970s, it has been clear that multiculturalism has its limits and that dominant groups are willing to accept only certain types or degrees of difference compatible with the wider societal aim of integration …. (83)

The 1970s brought yet another immigrant flow into Great Britain as Muslims from Bangladesh, escaping civil war on the Indian subcontinent between East and West Pakistan, made their way into Britain. While one would expect that First Wave Anglo-Indians, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, well-integrated into British society since the 1970s, would have few anxieties about mainstream British perceptions of more recent Muslim immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, ironically enough they are also affected, albeit indirectly, by such diverse flows— mainly because their complexions and comportment were similar. As Nagel and Staeheli (2008) quoting N. Yuval-Davis et al. (2006) put it, “In recent years, anxiety about supposed failures of multiculturalism have focused on Muslim communities whose tendency to cluster in inner city neighbourhoods and, in some instances, to cover their faces, are seen as indicating unwillingness to embrace British identity and values.” (83)

The 1980s and 1990s: Political Correctness Brings Shifts from Multiculturalism to Integration However, despite setbacks that ruled the 1980s, by the end of Mrs. Thatcher’s term as Prime Minister, that is, by 1990, the British populace had adopted another mode of conduct with regards to their minority communities—that of political correctness. Laws governing behaviour towards newcomers in public venues such as offices, schools and on transportation networks prohibited all forms of harassment or racial discrimination. Minority inhabitants of the British Isles who had for decades felt maligned by attitudes or actions of the general public found that the country had finally accustomed itself to difference and was willing to deal with it—with certain unspoken caveats. As long as immigrants did not practice customs or traditions that were abhorrent to the British way of life or values, they were willing to create room for such individuals and communities. However, Britons were unwilling to alter their lifestyles or cultural traditions in the process of accommodating their more recent compatriots. Nagel and Staeheli (2008) quote a line from a work by N.  Yuval-Davis

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et al. (2006) that explains this: “… as emphasized in current political discourse, it (multiculturalism, parenthesis mine) clearly stresses the responsibility of minority groups to embrace dominant norms rather than the need for the majority of society to accommodate and respect minority cultures and identities”(83). An engineer from Slough, originally from Asansol, said, “The English were always inclined to be racially prejudiced. But the insertion of the concept of political correctness into social discourse prevented them from expressing their annoyance with us. It is not as if they ceased to be racist or became more broad-minded as time went by. It is just that penalties could be levied upon them in the work place or on the streets if they revealed how they really felt about us. So, in a sense, we profited from the climate of political correctness and were much relieved by it.” Perceptions of South Asian immigrants in Britain—which includes Anglo-Indians—were altered negatively again after 1989 when devastating wars in Eastern Europe that aimed at ‘ethnic cleansing’ brought thousands of Eastern Europeans into Britain from Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia. Simultaneously, the erasure of European borders following the introduction of the Schengen visa and the creation of the European Union (of which Britain became an active member) brought thousands of migrant workers with rights to live and work long term in the British Isles. Although white-skinned and counting Christians among their numbers, their limited English and lack of entrepreneurial acumen caused conservatives to perceive them in the same way as the Anglo-Indians and East Africa Asians had been perceived in previous eras—as ‘parasites’ who bled the economy of its wealth by living off socialized services such as education and health care. However, despite the reservations associated with the new Eastern European influx, by the late 1990s, the discourse shifted once again from ‘multiculturalism’ to ‘integration,’ which was understood to demand a pro-active stance on the part of immigrants to facilitate their acceptance in the UK.  Thus, by this era, immigrants were expected not so much to retain their individual and community identities in Britain but to merge them within the cultural dominance of ‘Britishness.’ In the process, it was hoped that within this gigantic melting pot, a ‘national identity,’ as espoused by Bhikhu Parekh (1974), would be attained. In trying to define exactly what Parekh meant by the term, Varun Uberoi (2018) of Brunel University, explains that “A person with a national identity … usually thinks that he is part of, and shaped by, entities such as England or Britain” (46–64). He continues:

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An entity such as England … can be thought of as a nation: a territorially concentrated group of people who typically not only value their territory but share a history and a culture too. This culture consists of beliefs, norms and values, and it is shared by people not as they share resources, by dividing them, but as people share a home. This is because when certain beliefs, norms and values are ubiquitous among a territorially concentrated group, these beliefs, norms and values surround them and create a space in which they can feel safe and at ease, just as a home can. (46–64)

Uberoi (2018) goes on to explain that in projecting British national identity as constituting a shared sense of culture, traditions and norms, Parekh was also advocating the idea of a ‘polity.’ In other words, in the Parekh model, as Uberoi explains it, complete integration with the host nation has been attained when the individual living in Britain feels British. Anglo-Indian respondents in my survey often stated that, by the 1970s, they had felt fully English-British9 and that they would describe themselves as such. Very few stated that they continue to think of themselves as ‘Anglo-Indian’ or ‘from India.’ In other words, Anglo-Indians in Britain ceased to feel what Bhikhu Parekh called ‘outsiders.’ They no longer felt either excluded or marginalized. Their sense of perfect comfort with their adopted environment is not just a result of the efforts they made to assimilate and submerge their original cultural identities within the white Anglo-­ Saxon mainstream but also a result of willingness, over the decades, of their host nation to accept them and incorporate them into the polity coupled with tenets of political correctness that prohibited any overt manifestation of animosity or hostility towards them. In New Geographies of Race and Racism, editors Claire Dwyer and Caroline Bressey (2008) quote M. Keith who states that, “Geographers of race and racism negotiate a tension … ‘between languages of belonging and forces of power that make racial subjects visible’” (6). They continue, quoting Keith: “One site through which this tension is both made evident, and contested, is through the demographic measures used to categorize ethnicity” (6). In the case of Britain’s Anglo-Indians, despite the tension—evident on many levels—to which Keith refers, Anglo-Indians have ceased to be visible.

9  The terms ‘English’ and ‘British’ were used interchangeably by Anglo-Indians during interviews.

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Despite the fact that most Anglo-Indians claim to have integrated perfectly, some Anglo-Indian immigrants repeatedly lament the lack of specific demographic categories on census forms that would enable them to be counted correctly. They stated that their attainment of virtual invisibility within the South Asian diaspora in Britain was a result of their inability to make their presence felt officially. Being neither ‘White’ nor ‘Asian,’ they did not fit in either one of the original race-based categories. During an interview in 2008, then President of the South London Anglo-Indian Association Dulcie Jacob, had stated that as long as Anglo-Indians remained unacknowledged as a mixed race people in the nation-wide census, their presence would remain ambiguous. Jacob and other community leaders will be pleased to see that, as Dwyer and Bressey (2008) note, “There was a shift … between 1991 and 2001 to expand the category of ‘White’ … to include a dedicated ‘mixed’ ethnic category” (6). Paradoxically enough, far from bringing visibility to India’s immigrant Anglo-Indians in Britain, ethnic categorizing on census forms appeared at about the same time that the community’s virtual invisibility—acquired about 40 years after their first arrival as settlers—became obvious enough to scholars such as myself to merit both attention and inquiry.10 In other words, the existence on census forms of a mixed ethnic category does not seem to have achieved much in making Britain’s Anglo-Indians visible.

The 2000s: Animus Against Islam By the turn of the century, political upheavals (civil war, military dictators) and climate-related turmoil (floods, famine, drought) brought Black Muslim immigrants from Africa (for instance, from Somalia or Syria) to live in ghettoized communities with little or no interaction with the British mainstream. This phenomenon caused concerns about their “self-­ segregation” and the consequent dangers of “extremism,” according to Nagel and Staeheli (2008). Indeed, negative perceptions of their isolation was worsened by the terrorist activity of 2001  in the USA, commonly referred to as the tragedy of ‘9/11’ that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City and that of 2005 in London, commonly referred to as ‘7/7’ that involved the planting of bombs that 10  See Almeida (2017) which contains a detailed analysis of the manner in which immigrant Anglo-Indians in the UK have attained invisibility and ceased to be counted amongst the South Asian diaspora.

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exploded simultaneously on the underground and double-decker buses of the London transport system. Terrorism has had a devastating impact on immigration into Western countries from former Third World nations and on perceptions of brown-skinned immigrants in Britain. A 76-year-old former RAF radio officer based in Maidenhead, Berkshire, stated during a recent meeting, “The perpetrators of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London were brown-skinned—like most Anglo-Indians. Ever since then, the white British public has become wary of people of colour all over again. While in the mid-1940s and 1950s, when we had first arrived here, their reservations against immigrants from former British colonies were financial, social and cultural, today their concerns are centred around issues of public trust and national security.” What has spared Anglo-Indians such stereotyping is their practice of Christianity and their involvement with local parish churches that privileged them enough as to situate them within the majority. Indeed, although by the 1990s, Anglo-Indians no longer felt the need to emphasize their race or ethnicity in Britain because they had integrated completely and acquired virtual invisibility amidst the white Anglo-Saxon mainstream, they have once again been pulled into debates that surround issues of who is a ‘good immigrant’ and who a bad one. Although not a single Anglo-Indian writer features in the recent anthology of essays by Nikesh Shukla (2016) entitled The Good Immigrant in which 15 immigrants in Great Britain express views on what it means to be BAME (Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic) in a growingly diverse Britain (further evidence, perhaps, of their attainment of invisibility and their non-inclusion in the diaspora), leaders of the community continue to express anxieties about how the community is perceived today. Reviewing the book for The Guardian of London, Sandeep Parmar (2016) writes, “It’s a kind of unspoken deal at the heart of multiculturalism that immigrants are perceived to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’”

From the 2010s to the Present: The Call for Standardization In commenting on the dichotomous attitudes towards immigrants perceived as productive and those perceived as a drain on the economy, Parmar’s review (2016) continues:

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A black or Asian Olympic gold medallist or the winner of a reality TV programme is considered a ‘good’ immigrant by a host nation wanting sporting success or culinary entertainment. ‘Bad’ immigrants are ‘job-stealers’ or ‘benefit-scroungers’ or, worse, potential terrorists.

Parmar is referring to Black sporting superstar Mo Farah, originally from Somalia, who did Great Britain proud as an international athletics sensation and Nadiya Hussain, who was born in London in 1984, the dark-skinned daughter of parents who had arrived from Bangladesh. In winning the smash hit BBC TV series The Great British Bake Off, she competed with 11 other British competitors to win the coveted prize. As individuals of Islamic background, Farah and Hussain might have been perceived with suspicion and distrust. However, their professional success wipes out more prominent markers of identity such as their names and clothing. While Farah shows few signs of being made to undergo a make-­ over following his global success, he has shortened his name—from Mohammed to the less identifiable and far more generic Mo. And image critics would be blind if they did not notice that since winning the reality show, Hussain has undergone a massive physical metamorphosis—clearly an attempt to fit in better with British TV’s image of a good immigrant. Gone is the make-up-less face and stark black hair-concealing hijab she wore through every episode of the original show that had catapulted her to stardom. In its place, as hostess on a follow-up show called The Big Family Cooking Showdown, she sports far more trendy turbans in bright colours that match her outfits and offer glimpses of her hairline, bright lipstick, professional make-up and fashionable clothing that succeed in making her look far more like an ‘exotic’ Oriental than merely a puritanical Muslim with strict clothing conventions. The pressure to conform with British expectations of ‘standardization’ in appearance is well revealed in such examples of personal alteration or reinvention—evidence again, if more is needed, of what Bhabha (1994) had called ‘mimesis.’ No strangers to societal acceptance whenever they have made efforts to blend in, Anglo-Indian immigrants saw sensational show business success in Britain long before their more recent fellow-immigrants did. Cliff Richard, who was knighted by the Queen in 1995, and Engelbert Humperdinck, Anglo-­ Indians who had emigrated to the UK as children, became global singing superstars decades ago. However, they were always accepted as mainstream Britons because they never emphasized or even publicly declared their Indian origins and partial European parentage. Thus, few native

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Britons are aware of their mixed racial descent—proof that ‘standardization’ is key to societal acceptance. It is precisely these perceptions of what the British public will accept in their recently arrived compatriots that a variety of coloured and mixed race contributors in Shukla’s anthology (2016) reveal. As Parmar (2016) comments: “The essays interrogate a British national culture trapped in a post-­ imperial state of nostalgia.” Parmar also quotes Chimene Suleyman who described standardization as the backbone of the empire. Indeed, the sartorial transformation of Hussain suggests that in twenty-first century Britain, race, religion and colour matter less than appearance, exceptional talent and financial prosperity. So long as one looks British, behaves British and espouses British values and norms, one is accepted as a good immigrant. Not surprisingly, such attitudes have fuelled attempts at standardization. Ironically enough, similar attempts at standardization adopted by South Asian settlers in the 1940s and 1950s had brought upon them racial slurs such as WOG, denoting Westernized Oriental Gentleman. In that era, ‘Orientals’ were mocked for adopting Britishness. Today, the acquisition of this quality is what the dominant community expects of them if they wish to avoid hostility and be accepted as ‘good’ immigrants. In this context, the Essex-based Anglo-Indian said, “When I used to be asked why I had allowed myself to become a WOG in England, I would respond, ‘I was a WOG even when I lived in India. Britain did not make a WOG of me,’ I would tell my disparaging colleagues that the British made me a WOG when they settled in my former country. Of course, my sarcasm was usually lost on my ignorant co-workers.” Standardization and the acceptance that followed it does not stop essayist Wei Ming Kam from stating that “being a model minority is code for being on perpetual probation,” as quoted by Parmar (2016), for acceptance is conditional upon wider factors such as the acquisition of financial success. In admitting that they no longer recognize lingering Indian elements in their personae (other than their continued love of Indian cuisine), First Wave Anglo-Indians contribute only sparingly to what Parekh (1974) calls the ‘multiculturalism’ of Great Britain. The Anglo-Indian ‘Dances’ (formal Balls), for instance, through which they had asserted their identity in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, have slowly died a natural death as the original pioneering committee members have passed away or grown too aged or infirm to work at organizing them. On the other hand, Punjabis in London still hold regular Bhangra dance contests in Southall. Whereas all Indian immigrants unite at a massive parade in Trafalgar Square in London to

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assert their Indianness by celebrating India Day to coincide with the attainment of Indian Independence on August 15, 1947, Anglo-Indians have their own much quieter celebration in the suburb of Croydon. They celebrate Anglo-Indian Day, as part of the global Anglo-Indian events that demonstrate their uniqueness as an ethnic minority. The paradoxical desire to welcome and revel in invisibility on the one hand and on the other, once a year, to assert and maintain a separatist identity within the South Asian diaspora—is bewildering. One also wonders whether Anglo-Indian Day celebrations are aimed at manifesting the community’s cultural affiliation with their host country and its people more than an assertion of their origins as a people of mixed Indo-European racial descent deserving of a separate ethnic niche because of their racial make-up that marks them out as different and distinct from other South Asian immigrants.

Conclusion: Anglo-Indian ‘Nested’ Identities in the UK Today Through the changing political climate and racialized discourse of the past 70 years in Britain, Anglo-Indians in the UK have been affected. Today, they manifest a sense of what Clifford Geertz (1974) calls “mosaic identities—an observation that the individual has multiple ‘nested’ identities that are centred on one’s location in social-political/religious spacetime” (26–45). Anglo-Indians in the UK continue to manifest multiple identities—Indian, Anglo-Indian, Anglo-Saxon as well as British Anglo-Indian— that remain nested deep within their beings and that emerge in varied personae depending on specific circumstances. For example, in their continued passion for spicy cuisine, they are Indian. In their inability to speak Indian vernacular languages, they are Anglo-Indian. In their adoption of British leisure pass-times such as horse-racing and poker, they are Anglo-­ Saxon, and in their participation in international Anglo-Indian Reunions, they are viewed as part of the British Anglo-Indian delegation. For the most part, they have learned how to live with these multiple identities nested deep—indeed even latently—within their psyches. Because none of them seem to be in conflict with the other, they experience little or no psychological anxiety with these seeming contradictions.

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As the decades passed, new immigrants to the UK were targeted for censure for various reasons but primarily because they were not perceived as British enough. In the past couple of years, UKIP leaders such as Nigel Farage have sowed seeds of fear, distrust, anger and resentment against such entrants. Going by the anxiety expressed by Anglo-Indians to changing legislation, over the years, it would be fair to say that growing xenophobic backlash against people of colour in general in the UK is likely to disturb the community. I have not had the chance to find out how Anglo-­ Indians voted in the summer of 2016 during the referendum commonly known as ‘Brexit’ that brought mayhem, resentment and uncertainty throughout the European Union, and it is uncertain how the current post-Brexit climate will impact them as settlers. The new guard, headed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, consists of immigrants in prime positions, such as Rishi Sunak who was appointed Chancellor of the Ex-checker. He is the British-born son of Indian Punjabi parents who emigrated to the UK in the 1960s via East Africa. Ironically enough, as remarked by journalist Nesrin Malik (2020) in The Guardian, current Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who is opposed to emigration into Britain (particularly of unskilled workers), is herself the London-born daughter of Indian-­ Ugandan immigrants of Gujarati origin. She is currently backing new immigration rules that would have barred her own unskilled parents from entering and settling in the UK. In conclusion, it might be said that while sociological studies based on the stages of assimilation experienced by immigrants, such as those done by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess in the early twentieth century, delineated the typical steps involved in social and racial integration,11 more contemporary scholarship scrutinizes the influence of several—often conflicting—factors seen in the assimilation process. What emerges from current scholarship is that an individual’s sense of ‘belonging’ in a community is impacted by a multiplicity of factors working simultaneously, including race, religion, colour, culture, class and ethnicity, as much as it is influenced by prevailing public rhetoric and the attitudes and behaviour of the dominant community. This is as much true of Anglo-Indians in Britain as it is of immigrants everywhere.  See Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, The Science of Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1921). 11

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References Alibhai-Brown, Y. (2000). Who Do We Think We Are? London: Allen Lane. Almeida, R. (2017). Britain’s Anglo-Indians: The Invisibility of Assimilation. Maryland: Lexington Books. Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2018). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia— Race, Boundary-Making and Communal Nationalism. London: Routledge. Dodd, P. (1995). The Battle Over Britain. London: Demos. Dwyer, C., & Bressey, C. (Eds.). (2008). Island Geographies: New Geographies of Race and Racism. In New Geographies of Race and Racism (pp.  1–16). Aldershot: Routledge. Eig, J. (2017). The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex And Launched A Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.. Geertz, C. (1974). From the Native’s Point of View. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 28(1), 26–45. Gilroy, P. (2001). Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Levy, A. (2010). Small Island. London: Picador. Malik, N. (2020, February 24). Immigrants Built Britain. Now Their Conservative Children Are Disowning Them. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/24/immigrants-­britain-­conservative-­ priti-­patel-­sajid-­javid#maincontent. Mann, R., & Fenton, S. (2014). English Nationalism and Britishness: Class and the ‘Sub-state’ National Identities. In R. Garbaye & P. Schnapper (Eds.), The Politics of Ethnic Diversity in the British Isles (pp. 151–173). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Nagel, C., & Staeheli, L. A. (2008). Integration and the Politics of Visibility and Invisibility in Britain: The Case of British Arab Activists. In Claire Dwyer and Caroline Bressey (Ed.), New Geographies of Race and Racism (pp.  83–94). Aldershot: Routledge. Parekh, B. (1974). Rethinking Multiculturalism—Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Park, R. E., & Burgess, E. W. (1921). The Science of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parmar, S. (2016, September 22). The Good Immigrant Review: An Unflinching Dialogue About Race and Racism in the UK. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/22/good-­immigrant-­review-­nikesh­shukla-­britain-­racist. Powell, E. (1968). Rivers of Blood. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www. telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-­P owells-­R ivers-­o f-­B lood-­ speech.html.

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Shukla, N. (Ed.). (2016). The Good Immigrant. London: Unbound. Uberoi, V. (2018). National Identity: A Multiculturalist’s Approach. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 21(1), 46–64. Yuval-Davis, N., Antias, F., & Kofman, E. (2006). Secure Borders, Safe Haven and the Gendered Politics of Belonging. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(3), 513–535.

CHAPTER 8

Anglo-Indians of New Zealand: Colour and the Social Construction of Identity Robyn Andrews

As for the question, ‘Where did you learn such good English?’ I would say I learnt it on the boat over here. I got so sick of having to explain it all. I’d just make stuff up. (Anglo-Indian woman in her early sixties who had arrived with her family when she was a teenager) I remember one comment was, ‘Oh you’ve been away too long in London, bro. You’ve picked up the accent’. ‘I was never a Māori in the first place.’ So that was quite funny. (Anglo-Indian man in his late forties who had arrived in New Zealand in his twenties)

R. Andrews (*) Social Anthropology Programme, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_8

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Introduction From mid-2015 until mid-2016, I was engaged in a project exploring the experience of being Anglo-Indian in New Zealand.1 I was aware that while there were Anglo-Indians in New Zealand, very little about them was recorded—either in narratives of New Zealand’s history, in migrant statistics, or in other scholarly or literary works. My project sought to provide a more inclusive historical and contemporary picture of this minority group, and in doing so, add to the body of Anglo-Indian studies scholarship. In this chapter, I discuss a significant theme to emerge from the research, that of identity: how Anglo-Indians I engaged with identify themselves, are identified by others, and, deriving from that, some of the consequences of being identified in particular ways. The two quotes with which I opened this chapter—both expressed as utterances of annoyed resignation—are exemplary of a common theme which emerged in the stories I was told by my informants. Both are examples of judgements made of Anglo-Indians by the reduction of ethnicity to colour; consequently, it suggests that whiteness studies scholarship could illuminate this issue. Being ‘not quite white’, for example, accounts for the identity questions asked of Anglo-Indians, particularly during the initial wave of Anglo-­ Indian migrants to New Zealand in the 1940s. The supposition by many that Anglo-Indians are non-white and therefore are Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, also revealed the narrow range of reference operative in many New Zealanders (Māori and Pākehā2) who met these early arriving Anglo-Indians. Their experiences of being not-quite-white are comparable to those reported in other Commonwealth countries where Anglo-Indians have settled in significant numbers. As in these other countries, whiteness is the dominant narrative of belonging, which reduces ethnicity to colour and has a supporting suite of identity markers that can be used to interrogate an Anglo-Indian’s provenance. This includes names, accents, occupations, and country of origin, as will be discussed subsequently. In this chapter, I focus on those Anglo-Indians residing in New Zealand who left India from the 1940s until recent times. This period has 1  This project was the result of a funding opportunity provided by Asia New Zealand Foundation. 2  Pākehā is usually understood to be a ‘white’ New Zealander, but can also be used by any non-Māori New Zealander who chooses to be identified in this way.

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seen a significant change, both in the increasing numbers of ‘non-white’ residents arriving in New Zealand, and in the ways in which they are regarded. Immigration policies over this time give a sense of this change and will be outlined in some depth, in addition to changing social attitudes of each successive generation. First, though, I begin with a brief discussion of whiteness studies, followed by how whiteness plays out in New Zealand.

Contexts White Privilege and Racism Whiteness Studies, focusing on revealing the phenomena of white privilege and the underlying beliefs attached to it, can shed light on some Anglo-Indian experiences in New Zealand and elsewhere. Whiteness Studies scholarship, which began in the United States (Kolchin 2002), is an area that emerged from the acknowledged premise that race is a socio-­ cultural construct, rather than a biologically rooted entity. Nevertheless, ‘race talk’ is still used widely, and so often in offensive and racist ways. Whiteness studies offers a particular take on racism, with some arguing that it is a subdiscipline of Racism Studies (Garner 2017, p. 1584). With its roots in racism, two central terms, ‘race’ and ‘racism’, need defining. Race is discussed by the American anthropological association (AAA) in these ways: Ultimately ‘race’ as an ideology about human differences (…) became a strategy for dividing, ranking, and controlling colonized people used by colonial powers everywhere. ‘Race’ thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into ‘racial’ categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors. (https://www.americananthro.org/ConnectWithAAA/ Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2583)

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As Smedley and Smedley argue, ‘Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real’3 (2005). The term ‘racism’ is a relatively recent terminology, only coming into use since WWII (Mullings 2005). Mullings writes that while racism is understood in different ways, ‘The more persuasive perspective links racism to structures of power that emerge through processes of accumulation and dispossession within local and transnational contexts (Mullings, p. 667). Others define racism as a system of structuring opportunity and assigning relative value based on group membership, unfairly advantaging some people and disadvantaging others’ (Camara Phyllis 2002, p.  10). There is wide agreement that racism is the structural instantiations of race thinking in the dynamics governing the social body. Its impacts reverberate through societies in numerous areas, including health, access to education, employment, housing, transportation, and incarceration statistics (Gravlee 2009, 2020; Paradies 2006). Reactions against racism are exemplified by anti-colonial protests, civil rights, and anti-apartheid movements, and simultaneously within academia with responses such as Race Studies including the more nuanced versions: Blackness Studies (introduced by Paul Gilroy (1993)) and Whiteness Studies. Whiteness studies, as noted, focusses particularly on racism around whiteness, or not-quite-whiteness, and the often unacknowledged, but nevertheless understood, privileges attached to whiteness. An outcome of the privilege attached to whiteness is the phenomena of ‘passing’ as white (Ahmed 2004), which is accessible for fair skinned people, especially when it is coupled with language and other cultural competencies perceived as ‘white’. On Whiteness and Racism in New Zealand In New Zealand, Māori are the most recognizable version of non-white people and have faced well-documented institutionalized racism and discrimination. They are still the largest ethnic group in New Zealand, at 16.5% in 2018 (Statistics New Zealand). Migrants from China, India, and other Asian countries have also been making New Zealand their home since the 1800s, and now comprise 15.3% of the population (Statistics New Zealand 2013). They also have a history of facing racism and discrimination in the country, exemplified by a Poll Tax that was imposed on 3

 This is the title of the article as well as their central argument.

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all Chinese migrants from 1881 to 1944, and common newspaper headlines such as ‘Anti-Chinese hysteria in Dunedin’ in 1888 (Ministry for Culture and Heritage 2019). According to the  website displaying the headline from the 7 May 1888 newspaper story, ‘New Zealand in the 19th century strived to be a ‘Britain of the South Seas’ and Pākehā saw non-­ white migrants as undesirable’ (Ministry for Culture and Heritage 2019).4 Racism in New Zealand is a product of context: social, political, and historical, including an early history of colonialism by Britain. This led to dispossessing Māori of their lands and of social and cultural practices through decades of assimilationist policies, resulting in their marginalization and entrenched unequal power relations in New Zealand society (Harris et al. 2012). New Zealand was a British colony from 1841 until 1907 with the Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) being signed in 1840 between the British Crown and over 500 Māori chiefs.5 As such Māori have a specific and unique relationship with the Crown, although their status as treaty partners was largely ignored for many decades. Since the 1970s though, Māori, and some Pākehā, have agitated for recognition as partners. This has resulted in acknowledgment of Māori rights and claims under the Treaty, leading, for example, to the return of lands or reparation, establishment of te reo language and cultural immersion schools, and affirmative action such as offering places in universities and a dedicated Ministry for Māori Affairs. This has, however, generated a discourse in some sections of the population of ‘unfair privilege’, an oft-seen reaction to the perceived erosion of white privilege. Whiteness studies scholars usually maintain that ‘whites’ generally confer identity on others—various non-whites, and to group them together in the same category. In my research, however, as I describe later, in New Zealand, Māori also invoke these binary racial categorizations to attribute the non-white identity of Māori to Anglo-Indians. A feature of whiteness is its place in many western societies as ‘the norm’, as Harris et al. (2012) observe, ‘Analysts of whiteness […] have  I’m not aware of a correlating report on how Māori viewed these more recent migrants.  There were, however, two different texts signed, one in English and the other in Te reo Māori (Māori language) with some subtle but significant differences between them, particularly in the area of governance. The principles are still being settled through negotiation. Uncontested, and significant for this chapter, the Treaty sets up the idea that New Zealand, at its foundation, is a bicultural society, comprising the descendants of the signatories, Māori and Pākehā. 4 5

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long recognized that whiteness’s dominative power resides, in crucial part, in its occupation of a space of unmarked normativity’ (Harris et al. 2012, p. 213). In New Zealand, this is seen in a type of invisibility for Pākehā, as the norm, and the sense that they have ‘no culture’. This is particularly in opposition to Māori, whose culture is recognized and also commodified especially for tourist consumption. Writing about New Zealand, Claire Gray notes that a result of Pākehā New Zealanders not recognizing their own culture is that they have difficulties ‘in understanding the way in which white privilege operates’ (Gray 2012, p. 77). Their privileged position is taken for granted and, according to Gray (2012, p. 78), is unrecognized as such by individual Pākehā in New Zealand. This is the climate Anglo-Indians entered, with the advantages afforded by whiteness frequently unacknowledged (especially by white people) in contrast to the disadvantages of being non-white, as many Anglo-Indians experienced. Anglo-Indian Scholarship on Whiteness and Racism For Anglo-Indians, the colour of their skin has made a difference wherever they migrated, and it was mostly as a result of the gaze of the majority ‘white’ population in the countries they moved to. The late Anglo-Indian artist, Leslie Morgan, who was a child when his family immigrated to Britain from Lahore, for example, captures the experience of many Anglo-­ Indians in Britain when he says: We were indelibly marked by brown skin. While white skin is not in itself a signifier of whiteness, nevertheless outside the home, we were still seen as immigrants and ‘Pakis’. So, I grew up just wanting to be the same as my white friends; however much I might mimic my peers, I was always going to fail. (Lobo and Morgan 2012: 127 as cited by Rivera (2016), p. 49))

Blunt (2005) notes that despite assimilating well in Australia, they still encountered racism because of their skin colour, and D’Cruz (2004) and Almeida (2013, 2017) make similar observations based, respectively, on research and personal experience in Britain in the 1960s. Almeida reports, for example, one British Anglo-Indian participant commenting that ‘nothing had prepared us for the racism we encountered’ (Almeida 2013, p. 4). This was especially true for Anglo-Indians with darker complexions (Almeida 2013, 2015).

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In Australia, Costa-Pinto (2014) claims they encountered less racism than other Indian groups, speculating that this was due to being lighter skinned. It may also have been because of the ‘white’ cultural competencies: they spoke English, were Christians, and were generally Western in their worldviews and social practices. A number of scholars also write about Anglo-Indian ability and inclination to pass as European not only in their diasporic homes but also in India (Blunt 2003). A hierarchy of whiteness, or not-quite-whiteness, lines up with a hierarchy of racism, that is, the whiter one is, the less one experiences racism. Almeida’s (2013) nuanced findings identified whiteness in terms of degrees; with being ‘more’ and ‘less’ white ruling many aspects of Anglo-­ Indian lives, from employment and housing, to friendships. There is also a factor of time, with whiteness having less power in more recent times. Rivera, in synthesizing works based on more recent diasporic experiences, says: …as time has passed and societies have become more multicultural the ‘whiteness factor’ has all but disappeared for younger Anglo-Indians who are no longer interested in trying to be as ‘white’ as possible (Moss, 2008). Lewin has also noted that Anglo-Indian young adults have moved away from being ashamed of their Indian heritage and do not possess a desire to appear ‘white’ or fully Anglo. (Lewin 2005; Otter 2006 [as cited by Rivera 2016, p. 49])

McCabe, who carried out her research in New Zealand from 2011, supports the idea that ideas around ‘race’ changed over time. She comments in her thesis, ‘The silence that significantly affected the next generation of Kalimpong families in New Zealand reflected major stigmas in the early twentieth century around race, illegitimacy and institutionalisation. The willing involvement of descendants in this study attests to a fundamental shift in attitudes regarding all three in the space of one generation’ (McCabe 2014, abstract). More recent scholarship paints a slightly different picture of Anglo-­ Indian experiences in the countries they make their homes after migrating from India. Unless an Anglo-Indian identifies as such, they may not be ‘noticed’ or recognized as Anglo-Indian in the countries they arrived in. They have European names, their mother tongue is (almost universally) English, and they are Christians. These factors all aid them in settling easily in their typical destinations (Andrews and Otto 2017; Blunt 2003,

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2005), and many take pride in being able to assimilate with the communities they move into. In addition, there were many who could ‘pass’ as ‘white’ aiding them further in becoming part of their local communities, becoming potentially invisible migrants. Also, it may be that they look like other more common ethnic categories of people—in the US for instance, looking like Latinos, or perhaps Italians or the more common multiracial younger generation one sees particularly in cosmopolitan urban areas. Invisibility involving Anglo-Indians has emerged as a theme from recent research in different geographical locations. Rochelle Almeida writes of Anglo-Indians aiming for invisibility in the United Kingdom (Almeida 2015, 2017). Jayani Bonnerjee (2013), writing about Anglo-Indians in Toronto, noted their identity as ‘invisible’ migrants in the city. Toronto is a city which has one of the largest diasporic Anglo-Indian populations in the world. It hosts a number of associations, a widely distributed newsletter is published, and regular social events are held, including two World Anglo-Indian Reunions, the last being in 2007. Despite this, Anglo-­ Indians’ reported experience is that they are largely invisible. Since Anglo-Indians first began arriving in New Zealand in large numbers, the country has become very much more multicultural. The lens Anglo-Indians are viewed through in New Zealand has also been broadened. Stories told by newer arrivals shed further light on this. Migration in New Zealand Changes in New Zealand’s immigration policy have impacted upon the ability of Anglo-Indians to migrate to New Zealand, as well as on their reception and experience once there. Such policies are just one way to understand New Zealand’s social climate in terms of the integration of people of colour, including migrants. A preference for ‘white’ migrants or migrants from ‘European’ countries was evident in New Zealand’s immigration policies until the 1970s, as well as other countries Anglo-­Indians have preferred to migrate to, such as Britain, Canada, and Australia. Patrick Ongley and David Pearson (1995) compared the immigration policies of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand from 1945 to 1995 when Anglo-Indians were flooding out of India and looking for countries to settle in. For example, while Canada began dismantling their ‘Whites

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only’6 policy in the early 1960s (and completed the process by 1967), Australia discarded its ‘White Australia’ policy by 1973 and New Zealand, which had never adopted quite such a stringent ‘White New Zealand’ policy, replaced its ‘racially discriminatory’ policy by 1974 (Ongley and Pearson 1995, pp. 771–774). From 1974, the unrestricted right of entry for British migrants was ended and new selection criteria were introduced which emphasized ‘skills and qualifications, health, age, family size, and ability to settle’. The authors note, however, that ‘a preference for ‘traditional source countries’ and the potentially discriminatory ministerial discretion system remained in place’ until 1986 (Ongley and Pearson 1995, p. 774). This was followed by explicit objectives after 1986 to ‘to enrich the multicultural social fabric of New Zealand society’ (Ongley and Pearson 1995, p.  775). As a result the country earned the descriptor, coined by Spoonley and Butcher, of ‘superdiversity’ (2009). Immigration policies have continued to change, for example, the early 2000s saw the introduction of a ‘skilled migrant’ category, with family reunification policies also in effect. Since the mid-2017s, however, a parental category that had been part of the reunification policy became more restrictive than it was previously. Immigration policies have continued to become more restrictive, along with many other Western countries. The main ways to enter the country now are to possess skills New Zealand needs or to hold a student study visa.7 I turn now to what was known of Anglo-Indians over the period from the late 1940s to the time I carried out the research. Anglo-Indians in New Zealand Prior to engaging with the ethnographic project this chapter draws from, I began assembling a picture of Anglo-Indian arrivals and experiences in New Zealand from the available searchable sources: archival records, census data, and publications on specific groups of Anglo-Indians. There is a small amount of archival documentation, for example, letters to officials, re-entry applications, and arrival documents. One letter to the Minister of Immigration in 1912 pleads a case for entry at a time when ‘there are certain immigration restrictions in force in New Zealand against 6  This was how these racially discriminatory policies were referred to, but they were never named as such in policy. 7  While I suggest that social mores are reflected in social policy, there will always be a lag between one and the other, which can work in either direction.

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all persons of mixed blood’,8 referring to the policy in place at the time. New Zealand’s armed services records, along with immigration registration records, are also potential sources of identifying early Anglo-Indians to New Zealand. Being referred to as ‘Hindoo’ combined with Western names in a record makes it likely that such a person is Anglo-Indian rather than another type of Indian, or that they are British residents in India. New Zealand’s national five yearly census is another way of obtaining a picture of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand. While they have not been documented as such until very recently, even early census returns make it possible to identify potential, or probable, Anglo-Indians. It is, for example, possible to identify Christians who are ‘race aliens of mixed blood’ in particular national categories, including India. From the 1926 census, when such detailed data was available, there were 257 Indian ‘race aliens of mixed blood’ who are Christians (Andrews 2018, p. 223). They are very likely to be Anglo-Indian. More recent censuses offer a straightforward way to ascertain numbers and other details about Anglo-Indians. The 2013 census, for example, reported 327 Anglo-Indians in New Zealand on 5 March of that year. It also generated further information, including that the most common residential location for Anglo-Indians was the Auckland region (at 52.3%); the median age was 49.6 years; 28% were born in New Zealand and 71% were born overseas; with 95.1% having a formal educational qualification (Statistics New Zealand 2013). Each Anglo-Indian who identifies as such in the census must take several steps in the survey to do so as there is no category of Anglo-Indian to tick. They must tick ‘other’ in the list provided (which includes European and Indian, amongst others) and then write Anglo-Indian. This indicates some determination on the part of the one taking the census to have him/herself counted as Anglo-Indian. The scholarly literature on the community in New Zealand is comparatively limited. Works include anthropologist Jacqueline Leckie’s Indian Settlers: The Story of a New Zealand South Asian Community (2007), which, while not mentioning Anglo-Indians as migrants, does identify one Edward Peters as an Anglo-Indian from Goa. It is suggested that he may have actually initiated the gold rush in New Zealand in 1861. More significant are two other scholars, both historians, who centre their work on specific groups of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand. Dorothy McMenamin 8  Letter from J.S. Coyne to New Zealand’s Immigration Minister 3 August, 1912. ACIF 16475 C, 46/c 1912/1717 Wellington, Archives New Zealand.

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spent more than a decade, from 1997 to 2008, collecting oral histories of Anglo-Indians who had lived in British India and are now in New Zealand (McMenamin 2010). Aligning with my findings, a number of her participants told her stories of how they were identified and misidentified in New Zealand. In particular, she notes the trend of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand being mistaken for Māori (McMenamin 2010). She gives an example of a woman from Lahore, who arrived in New Zealand in the late 1960s, and talked about a visit to Rotorua when she was offered free admission to a tourist show. She explained: ‘She [the ticket seller] said to me, you’re Māori, a native, so you don’t pay. [The person with her] said, you are not Māori, and I said, well I didn’t want to insult her, she thought I was a Māori, a native, I wasn’t to pay so I wasn’t going to argue’ (McMenamin 2010, p. 197). This trend is one I discuss further along in relation to my own research. Jane McCabe’s work focuses on ‘Kalimpong Kids’: the 130 Anglo-­ Indians who came to New Zealand between 1908 and the late 1930s from St Andrew’s Colonial Homes, better known as Dr. Graham’s Homes, in Kalimpong, North East India (McCabe 2014, 2017). They arrived in New Zealand to be permanent settlers as part of a colonizing scheme for students from the school. The young men were employed as farm labourers, and young women as domestic help mostly in urban contexts (McCabe 2014, 2017). As she documents, a reasonably steady trickle came directly from the school having just graduated. Dr. Graham, who founded the school and the scheme did so as he felt that New Zealand would be a country these AngloIndian students would fit in and settle well. McCabe records that his original stated purpose in opening the Homes was to provide a long-term solution to the Anglo-Indian problem through permanent settlement of mixed-race adolescents in ‘the colonies’ (McCabe 2014, p. 10). As it transpired, while he hoped to settle graduates in Australia and Canada, he was successful in doing so only in New Zealand (McCabe 2014, p. 11). It was through my own contacts with this school that my research interest in the Anglo-Indian community began.9

9  I explain the details of this connection in Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian stories and essays (Andrews 2014).

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The Project As a New Zealander spending periods of time in India, I was frequently told of Anglo-Indian friends and family who were now living in New Zealand. It was from these conversations that my curiosity about those in New Zealand grew. Apart from the small number of Anglo-Indians I knew personally, I had very few potential contacts in New Zealand. A search for Anglo-Indian associations, for example, was unsuccessful. So where was I to start to find members of this community? I followed up friends of friends or family of people I had met. I was then introduced to their friends and acquaintances, so I began to grow a participant base. At the same time, I created a Facebook research website describing and promoting the proposed research and inviting New Zealand-resident Anglo-Indians to contact me. This approach led to locating Anglo-Indians throughout New Zealand. I carried out over fifty informal interviews around the country with Anglo-Indians or their descendants, in addition, another fifty filled in interview-type survey forms rather than being interviewed. For the purposes of the project I did not use the Indian constitution definition to determine who was Anglo-Indian but accepted, as participants, all those who said they identified as Anglo-Indian, or as descendants of Anglo-­ Indians. They all explained their connection to Anglo-Indians, or ‘Anglo-­ India’, as part of the research. The interviewees were male and female, from their early twenties to early eighties, with varied links to and identification with the community. Some had arrived in New Zealand less than a year before the interview, while others’ grandparents or great grandparents came to New Zealand many decades ago. As I have noted already, for this chapter I draw on those interviews with Anglo-Indians who came to New Zealand from the 1940s until the time of the project. What I was told by these Anglo-Indians was in line with existing scholarship on Anglo-Indians, with specificities to the New Zealand situation, as I discuss in the next sections. I begin by exploring issues of identity and misidentification, as well as some experiences of racism and discrimination in various arenas including employment. I end with a section examining what Anglo-Indians in New Zealand do to claim their Anglo-Indian identity, as well as claiming a space in New Zealand society.

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Anglo-Indian Identity Explanation Fatigue, Identification, and Misidentification My personal experiences with Anglo-Indians in New Zealand before starting this project, as well as recent scholarship by Bonnerjee (2013) and Almeida (2017),10 suggested that invisibility was going to be a key theme for this project, but as I discuss next, while it was part of the picture in New Zealand, it was not something that Anglo-Indians I spoke to dwelt on in interviews. Rather, they told me about feeling frustrated, and at times exhausted, by having to explain who they were. Mostly they said they did not feel not invisible, rather they stood out from ‘the norm’ in the way they looked and sounded. This frustration was captured below by a woman now in her early sixties, who came to New Zealand with her family in the late 1960s and who later completed doctoral studies: I’m always asked where I’m from, and then I’m asked how I learned such good English. And when I converted to Christianity. When I was a teenager, I used to string people along. I got so sick of the questions, which I found insulting actually. I wouldn’t just go up to people and ask…! So, I would reply ‘where do you think I’m from?’ And if they said, say ‘Egypt?’ I’d say, ‘you’re right!’ And as for the question, ‘Where did you learn such good English?’ I would say I learnt it on the boat over here. I got so sick of having to explain it all. I’d just make stuff up. But once I was in my thirties or so I would tell people: ‘I’m Anglo-­ Indian’, and then if they genuinely seemed interested in knowing more, I’d explain. But only if they had time! (laughs)

Most Anglo-Indians I spoke to said they regularly fielded questions about ‘who they were’. They explained that the reason people asked that question was due to their appearance (a cast of features combined with skin tone) and their accent. Explaining further that people could not identify their ‘look’ nor could they accurately place their accent. Offering an explanation about one’s identity was not always straightforward either.

10  See also, Almeida in this volume ‘Thus, the majority of First Wave settlers believed that their mixed racial descent was of no help in making Britain their adopted home. Indeed, if anything, their mixed racial ancestry was a hindrance, they stated, for it caused misrecognition and misidentification (they were usually perceived as South Asians).’

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For example, Trina who is now in her early seventies and was a small child when her family arrived in New Zealand in 1949 says this: When I say I’m Anglo-Indian, which I do, frequently, they look at you blankly, and ‘What? Does that mean you’re half caste?’ and I say ‘No. I have got Indian … We’ve found one forebear who is Indian, and there are others, but it goes back a long way.’ And then they say, ‘But your father was dark?’ and I say, ‘Yes, he was Anglo-Indian.’ ‘And your mother was fair,’ because she was very fair.

Anglo-Indians within the same family, including siblings, often talk about their fairer and darker (referred to as swarthy) family members. Such variety is another area frequently requiring explanation. Another characteristic I was told that others commented upon were their names, which seemed to be a source of curiosity bordering on suspicion. One participant said people would ask, ‘if you’re ‘Indian’ then why do you have such European names?’. A male teacher I spoke to told me his Pākehā wife was asked by his principal what his ‘real’ name was, assuming an Indian given name had been replaced by a European name to aid migration. This indicates a lack of understanding about who Anglo-Indians are.11 This mismatch between the name, and how a person looks could also be problematic for some in New Zealand who expected that a European name was likely to mean a person was ‘white’, (although, again this lines them up with Māori, many of whom have European names from Pākehā ancestors). Another New Zealand resident Anglo-Indian talked about an earlier, Australian experience, of losing a job offer because of what he looked like. He said he had been led to believe his job application was successful, but on turning up in person at the school to finalize the contract, that decision was turned around. He had no doubt that his ‘Indian’ appearance was not something the headmaster had anticipated given his European name, and not what this elite school was looking for. The lack of understanding and misunderstanding of their identity as Anglo-Indian was due to the ways they were exceptions to ‘the norm’. The examples above are all pre-1980s (after which, New Zealand began to open its borders to more diverse populations) and demonstrate that Anglo-Indians were very often not accepted as ‘culturally white’. This was 11  Conversely, in India, I heard from Anglo-Indians that their non-‘Indian’, European family name, was at times experienced as an obstacle to gaining employment.

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responded to in a range of ways, as the examples demonstrated, from pain and exasperation to fiction about their country of origin. Identity Linked to a Country Another form of misidentification was to their country of origin, without nuance or recognition of community identity. India, for example, has internal nuance to name ethnic difference by different ‘community’ terms. New Zealanders very often do not have this awareness about India and perceive it as an ethnically monolithic country. In asking about how others identified them I was told both identification and a number of misidentification stories. For example, Len arrived in New Zealand in 1953 and explains that he is still misidentified, well into the 2000s, by people who have known him for a long time. He gives the example of his parish priest who he regards as a long-time friend: It’s funny, I used to take Father [name] some food and all that, sometimes, quite often actually. And his housekeeper then, she said, ‘Oh, this gentleman came and left you some food’, so Father said, ‘Oh, is he the Indian?’ ‘No, he doesn’t look Indian’ (laughs). See, a lot of them believe that if you’re from India, you have to be Indian, you see. Well, I’m from India, and I’m Anglo-­ Indian. (Man in his early eighties)

Len’s comment reflected what was said by a number of interviewees— that when they said they were from India, then they were regarded as being  undifferentiated ‘Indian’, no matter what they may look like, or what ‘white’ cultural competencies they may exhibit. So, while it should not be surprising to be identified by nation, it was a source of frustration to be grouped with others they do not identify with. Their reaction to their ‘incomplete’ identity says something about identity—that it is much more than being about a place or country ascription. The subtleties of identity are vitally important to the identity holder. Misidentification as Māori There is another form of misidentification which is unique to New Zealand, that of Anglo-Indians being mistaken for Māori. These next two quotes illustrate this reasonably common occurrence. In the first, Marie is talking about her mum arriving in the late 1940s:

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She said that when they first came here, when they first got off the ship, someone came up to her and did a hongi!12 Of course she didn’t know what that was about! They thought she was Māori. People assumed that she was Māori until they talked to her. Because she spoke, well, a bit like the Queen. A very nice English sort of accent. We used to tease her about it sometimes.

Next, Patrick, who came to New Zealand in 1990s via the United Kingdom where he grew up, says: I was working in a role in the public service sector in New Zealand, I ended up working for the Ministry of Māori Development. And in the early days, people naturally assumed because I was working in the Ministry of Māori Development, I was Māori. And it was only when I started speaking that they all got confused (both laugh). I remember one comment was, ‘Oh you’ve been away too long in London, bro. You’ve picked up the accent’. ‘I was never a Māori in the first place’. So that was quite funny.

Some Anglo-Indians said they feel Māori are something of kindred spirits—as well as looking similar, they are both products of colonialism, speak English, are familiar with Christianity even if they  are not practicing Christians. One man I spoke to said he is regularly asked ‘What iwi [tribe] are you from?’ He says this engenders a sense of inclusion in the nation, even if it is mistaken. As soon as his identity is interrogated, however, any gains he may have felt are lost. He, and other Anglo-Indians I have spoken with, said they feel that New Zealand is still very much a bicultural country and that unless one is Māori or Pākehā it is difficult to stake a place in the nation. My own research experience supports this type of misidentification: on several occasions when someone I knew heard I had interviewed one of their acquaintances, they commented that they had always presumed the person was part Māori. This form of misidentification as part of the indigenous community is not something I have come across in anecdotal accounts or in research on Anglo-Indians in other countries, for example, in Australia and Canada, which also have indigenous populations. As such, this form of misidentification seems to be unique in New Zealand. Anglo-­ Indians have also shared with Māori the experience of being poorly treated at times, as I discuss next.

 A hongi is a traditional Māori greeting involving the touching noses.

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Discrimination and Racism From the perspective of those involved in my research, the key aspect of being Anglo-Indian in New Zealand is that you are not white. Being not white matters—it can lead to racism and discrimination and stereotypical treatment. For all the policies and strategies in place, racism in New Zealand still often targets Māori and other non-white New Zealand residents. Mira talked candidly about racism and discrimination she experienced after arriving in New Zealand in 1955, when she was 12 years old. She identifies being treated in a particular way, because she was ‘dark’, explaining: I went to [a prestigious school in Auckland], and my grades were very poor. And those were two of my most unhappy years in my whole life. I had an Australian teacher, and she took one look at me and … I learned about what they call coloured prejudice in those days. And she used to make fun of my accent, because it was very strong, and again I was the only dark one there.

A brother and sister, whose father came to New Zealand in the 1930s as a young man directly from Dr. Graham’s Homes as part of the colonization scheme (discussed earlier (McCabe 2017)), told me about the racist attitudes their father had experienced: I think he was a forward-thinking man. He was doing farming for a little while, and then he decided he wanted to change his career and become an accountant. But he soon found out that, because of the era, that coloured people couldn’t get that kind of a job. He actually passed the exam for accountancy, and everything. And all it had to be was rubber stamped by the accountant. He passed the exams, but then he was unable to practice? He wasn’t prepared to take the next step, to start up an accountancy business. And the other thing: haircuts. Our Father couldn’t get a haircut up the top of the street! Well, he had to go down to the bottom barber, to [named person], who cut the Māori people and other Indians, and Chinese. And you go up to the top of the main street and it was only white … And there were other things as well. What era was that?

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‘50s and ‘60s. Even one of my school friends, who was an Indian fella, he said he had a hard time as well. So there was some discrimination, but dad was always positive.

This example and the one above suggests that Anglo-Indian experiences were often similar to Māori, Pacific, Chinese, and other Indians. They were viewed altogether as ‘brown people’ and treated the same as these other marginalized groups. In particular, they were treated as a group of non-white residents without the privileges associated with being white. Discrimination of services was not formalized, but informally they were in place, and recognized by those who used the services. Of those I interviewed, only one referred to more recent discriminatory treatment, and it seems it was quite subtle. Patrick, who worked in the Ministry of Māori Development, talked about what he called ‘mis-­ placed’ racism. But I remember, from about 15 years ago [so about 2000], there is that underlying bit of redneck stuff in New Zealand, that people just don’t talk about. I copped a bit from people who thought I was Māori. A very very small minority, but it was definitely there.

Employment-Linked Identity The way Anglo-Indians were identified affected employment prospects too, as it did for the other marginalized groups in New Zealand. But again, individual appearance played a part and experiences were varied. Marie, for example, provides a positive example, although still referring to non-white appearance as a possible impediment. She relayed her mother and her aunt’s late 1940s experience of gaining employment in teaching, a very popular employment area for Anglo-Indians: Before they left India, someone from New Zealand had sent a package to a friend of theirs, wrapped in an Auckland newspaper which just happened to have an Ad for teachers at [an Auckland] School. Mum’s sister, who came at the same time, taught secondary, and mum was primary, so they both applied for jobs. I asked Mum, ‘Did you send photos?’ (laughs). Well, they did. Mum said, ‘They were black and white photos, but you know…’ (laughs) They weren’t really hiding what they looked like [which they later described as ‘quite Indian’]. So, they got the jobs even before they turned up. They were able to walk straight into work. They had no problem work-

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ing there. My aunty, who came a bit later, stayed there for twenty years and became head of department. They definitely looked Indian, and they spoke so nicely so they fitted straight in. So, their qualifications must have been okay and recognised.

This employment situation was very positive, and no hint of discrimination or racism was indicated, as is the case in the next example. One very fair, European-looking Anglo-Indian man said that finding employment had been the easy part of coming to New Zealand. He had work experience both in India and in the Middle East and explained: When I came to New Zealand … we came in ‘65. 1965. There was underemployment over here. There were heaps of jobs, you could just walk in … The first three months I was here, I had three jobs. (…) I wanted to work. I could have worked 7 days a week if I wanted to. There was plenty of work available (…) And of course, it was good for me then, because it meant a lot of money coming in. Sort of start early, come back about eight at night.

This man  attributed the ease he had in gaining employment to New Zealand’s want for workers at the time, which probably was at least part of the story. He did not mention his appearance at all and may not have been aware of how he was seen, as qualified, experienced, with excellent English, and would pass as white. Given other stories from this time it seems likely that he was seen as Anglo/white, which helped him to  so easily gain employment. Others have reported different, less happy experiences, such as the teacher discussed earlier, who was confident of being offered employment, until a face-to-face meeting occurred when he was turned down. Fitting in In the last section of this chapter I look at what Anglo-Indians say about their sense of fitting into New Zealand on the basis of their identity. A common theme was of feeling they did not fit in, as Patrick says here, in relation to filling in forms: There’s never a box for that [Anglo-Indian] and you never fit into anything. So, I always tick Other and then write in Anglo-Indian. Even basic stuff, when you register for things, you fill in forms … Recently when I registered for my GP [general practitioner] and they wanted to know what ethnicity I

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was, and I said Anglo-Indian. And the reply was ‘Oh, we don’t have that down as a particular option.’ I asked, ‘Can I just write it in?’

In addition to the types of forms referred to above, Anglo-Indians can identify as Anglo-Indian every time there is a national census as that also requests ethnicity information. Responses to my questions about why they did or did not take the opportunity to do so are revealing of various identity issues, such as the ability to pass, and not wanting to be grouped with ‘other’ Indians, or taking ethnicity to mean the same as nationality, as the following examples demonstrate. One man who had arrived in the 1945 with his family when he was under 10 years old provided this explanation around identity and passing. He said he could not remember exactly what he had ticked in the last census but that: There was a time when my parents maintained that they were white enough to just be called English. And so, in the early days, I think it was … it’s more prestigious, to be English instead of Anglo-Indian. If you were white enough to pass, then it was a better option. Your mum looked as she could have. Oh, my Mum, definitely English-looking and went to the Anglican Church and all that. She was very English, and the way she spoke too.

He articulated what a number of people may have done, not only in the census but in other areas of their life. That is, if they were white enough to pass, they would passively let people believe, or actively communicate, that they were ethnically white as well. This claiming of a white identity, in this next case as European, was part of the rationale for Trina too, as she describes when I asked: In the Census do you say you’re Anglo-Indian? I have done in the past, but in the later years I was thinking, ‘Well, people will say, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ she must be Indian,’ so I say I’m European now in the Census. I don’t really know what to say, but I don’t want to be lumped in with the Indians here. I’m different. You feel more similar to the Europeans. Yes, and I have got the European in me.

This woman lives in an area where there is a large population of (non-­ Anglo-­Indian) Indians, so it was important to her to distinguish herself as

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she felt quite different to them, so called on a genuine point of difference. Others said they selected ‘Indian’, giving me various reasons for doing so. For example, a young woman who had been in New Zealand for just over a year when I interviewed her, said she is guided by her passport for her identity. That is, she draws on the idea that ethnicity is the same as citizenship. She explained, in answering my question about whether she said she was Anglo-Indian in the census: No, I didn’t. I said Indian, and it’s very difficult because on my passport … they don’t have that option. I put myself as Indian, and then I’m like, ‘Oh no, I’m actually not, I should be Anglo-Indian’.

Similarly, another woman said: I was like, I don’t exactly identify as Indian, but that’s what I’ve always put because there was no other option.

Trying to work out where they fit, in terms of their identity, was a vexed issue for many. Some felt perhaps they should identify as Indian, as their passports supported this, but they really resisted doing so as they felt culturally different. One participant, after looking at her interview transcript said she did not like the way it sounded for her to be differentiating herself from other Indians. Her sense of distinction though, drawing on her European ancestors, was felt strongly. She knew it was not an appropriate differentiation to have made, based as it was on a sense of being ‘whiter’ than those she compared herself with, both in skin tone and culturally. In her assessment, however, she did not belong with them. Anglo-Indians almost invariably talk about being different from ‘Indians’ in such a way that indicates they regard, and use, the category of ‘Indian’ as a monolithic ethnic category, not differentiating between various ‘Indian’ communities. This is premised on how they think about their own identity, seeing Europeans as one thing, Indians as another, and Anglo-Indians as a mix of the two but culturally identified mainly to the former. While it would be normal today to think of any of the ethnic groups within India as Indian, because nationality is not, according to India’s constitution, an ethnic, religious, or linguistic category (though, of course, Hindutva ideology may suggest otherwise), Anglo-Indians commonly use the term ‘Indian’ as a conflated racial-national category.

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Making Spaces to Belong Some I spoke with commented that it took them a long time to feel they belonged, and getting to that point often involved thinking about their identity as Anglo-Indian and working out how they could make a space to belong. Sometimes this involved first recognizing their sense of not belonging. One person I interviewed talked about ‘feeling different’, as she expressed it, recalling being brought up in a farming area of New Zealand: So rural New Zealand didn’t quite understand parents who were born in India. It was a bit tricky (chuckle). Was it a problem? I don’t think so, no, no. But we certainly always felt different. Because, especially once Dad worked on the farm, and it was very Kiwi-orientated, and yeah, something that was a bit different. But having said that, there were lots of people who … We had some teachers out at [named very small rural town], and they talk about Kitty’s Curry, for years. So, it was an awakening time for them, I think.

This family made a place for themselves by introducing locals to ‘different’ and, no doubt, exotic food, which they felt was appreciated. The ‘awakening’ of those they came in touch with was viewed as a contribution to broadening their worldview and knowledge.13 What also appears to help Anglo-Indians to feel they belong is meeting with other Anglo-Indians. I was told of many small groups who meet regularly at church services and for lunches or house parties where they share traditional dishes, such as Ball Curry and Yellow Rice and Vindaloo. I asked those I interviewed, who didn’t already have a network of Anglo-­ Indian friends, if they would be interested in being part of, or forming, some sort of Anglo-Indian group. There was a lot of enthusiasm for finding a way of being in touch with other Anglo-Indians. For example, Cushla, who did not know any others in New Zealand, responded as below when I asked if she would like to meet others:

13  This participant added that for her being involved in this project has helped her to find where she fitted, saying ‘It’s been really enlightening for me. I’m really thrilled to have met you, to find out … (said tearfully). It’s become very special. It’s been lovely. It’s helped me to slot into my little place. Because we did … I have always felt different’.

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Definitely, yes! Yes, definitely. I started thinking about this a lot, and of course having had time [in India] with Granddad last year, all his beautiful stories were there and that sort of thing (…) So now I would definitely want to. And that’s partly how I found you, because I was [on holiday] and I had this brainwave that I should be a part of some Anglo-Indian group in New Zealand, and then (laughs) this is how this happened.

In contrast to other countries where Anglo-Indians have settled, where there are Anglo-Indian associations, clubs, dances, and even residential homes for their elderly, New Zealand has no Anglo-Indian association or society. There was an association up until 2001 when one organization, the New Zealand Eurasian Society, hosted the World Reunion of Anglo-­ Indians in Auckland.14 Because of the project there is now a Facebook group created in 2016 by several Anglo-Indians after the first Auckland community dinner. This was the first of a series of dinners held around the country for Anglo-Indians to meet others. What has been heartening for Anglo-Indians to see is the inclusion of a panel dedicated to Anglo-Indians in a recent travelling installation celebrating 125 years of Indians in New Zealand (https://www.ethniccommunities.govt.nz/news/mokaa-­the-­land-­of-­opportunity/ accessed 26 May, 2020). A recent meeting with Te Papa’s (New Zealand’s national museum) curator of a new portfolio focused on Asian communities in New Zealand also holds promise that within the next few years Anglo-­ Indians in New Zealand will be acknowledged for who they are, a culturally distinct Indian migrant group.15

Concluding Discussion Key themes in the experience of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand were around identity (their own and others’ assessment of their identity) and the limited options that New Zealanders have had to situate people of colour, particularly in the mid-twentieth century. This is not to say experiences were consistent: for Anglo-Indians who were fair, that is those who 14  At that reunion, the idea of an Anglo-Indian day was first mooted by New Zealandresident reunion convenor, David Leckey. Celebrations for Anglo-Indian Day are now held each 2 August, all over the world, wherever there are Anglo-Indians in sufficient number. 15  In addition, during New Zealand’s 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown when high school students were offered online teaching, a module featuring an Anglo-Indian was developed as part of the senior social studies curriculum.

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were ‘white’ enough—both in terms of appearance and cultural competence—it was possible to disappear into their new communities; for those who were not so fair, their appearance could lead to colour-based treatment and frequently lead to awkward and misinformed questions about who they were. Whiteness studies offers a way to view Anglo-Indian experiences in New Zealand, as it does for Anglo-Indians in other parts of the world. Experiences have been similar in terms of colour-based treatment. New Zealand’s situation is unique, however, in Anglo-Indians being misidentified as Māori. Due to New Zealand’s colonial history, most Māori share similar western characteristics of religion, language, and westernized practices and worldview. Anglo-Indian responses to these parallels and being misidentified as Māori are mixed. While the shared characteristics can lead to some comfort and connection to Māori, they have also, similarly, experienced racism and discrimination, especially in the early years of Anglo-­ Indians arriving in New Zealand. This situation has changed over the decades since Anglo-Indians began making New Zealand home, as the country’s immigration policies indicate. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, New Zealand’s ethnically discriminating policies mirrored the idea of New Zealand as a nation of white settlers, but by the turn of the millennium, immigration decisions were based on skills potential immigrants could bring, with settler diversity and cosmopolitanism now officially embraced. New Zealand’s changing immigration policy then has both contributed to and reflects the social acceptance of non-white migrants making it easier for Anglo-Indians to come to New Zealand, and arguably to identify with New Zealand as home. Anglo-Indians I spoke with compared themselves to others in New Zealand when thinking about their own identity: to Pākehā, Māori, and other Indians. The woman living near other Indians deeming them more ‘other’, for example, called on her European forebears to distinguish herself. There are different types of invisibility operating in the examples in this chapter: one is that of the ‘white’ population of New Zealand, who as ‘the norm’ can feel they have no noticeable or visible culture. While Māori can  feel visible ‘as Māori’ and as part of a unique New Zealand group, rather than being individualized. Another other kind of invisibility, which Anglo-Indians can feel, is of being unknown and unrecognized as

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individuals or as a community. They did not generally report feeling invisible though as they were not regarded, or identify, as the norm. It is clear that Anglo-Indians want their own identity recognized for what it is; it has never been enough to be ‘a bit like other brown people’ in New Zealand. As such, when opportunities arise, they seek out their own space with the society, customs, food, and shared history with other Anglo-Indians. What is also promising is the recent interest and profiling, by various bodies, of Anglo-Indians in New Zealand. Such initiatives may yet see Anglo-Indians being very much more widely known.

References Ahmed, S. (2004). Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-­ Racism. Borderlands, 3(2), 1–54. Almeida, R. (2013). Paradoxes of Belonging: Individuality and Community Identity. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 13(1). Retrieved from http://home.alphalink.com.au/~agilbert/al13.html. Almeida, R. (2015). Immigrants, Refugees, or Both? Migration Theory and the Anglo-Indian Exodus to Great Britain. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 15(2), 2–24. Almeida, R. (2017). Britian’s Anglo-Indians: The Invisibility of Assimilation. Lexington Books. Andrews, R. (2014). Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian Stories and Essays. Sage. Andrews, R. (2018). ‘Did You Know Your Great-Grandmother Was an Indian Princess?’ Early Anglo-Indian Arrivals in New Zealand. In S. Bandyopadhyay & J. Buckingham (Eds.), Indians and the Antipodes: Networks, Boundaries, and Circulation (pp. 210–232). Oxford University Press. Andrews, R., & Otto, B. H. (2017). Religion as Capital: Christianity in the Lives of Anglo-Indian Youth in India. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 32(1), 105–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2016.1256656. Blunt, A. (2003). Geographies of Diaspora and Mixed Descent: Anglo-Indians in India and Britain. International Journal of Population Geography, 9(4), 281–294. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Blackwell. Bonnerjee, J. (2013). Invisible Belonging: Anglo-Indian Identity in Multicultural Toronto. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34(4), 431–442. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/07256868.2013.821215. Camara Phyllis, J. (2002). Confronting Institutionalized Racism. Phylon (1960-), 50(1/2), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/4149999.

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Costa-Pinto, S. (2014). Making the Most of Technology: Indian Women Migrants in Australia. International Migration, 52(2), 198–217. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1468-­2435.2010.00640.x. D’Cruz, G. (2004). ‘Beyond the Pale’ (The Author Seeks to Understand His Anglo-Indian identity). Meanjin, 63(2), 223–230. Garner, S. (2017). Surfing the Third Wave of Whiteness Studies: Reflections on Twine and Gallagher. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(9), 1582–1597. https:// doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1300301. Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Verso. Gravlee, C.  C. (2009). How Race Becomes Biology: Embodiment of Social Inequality. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 139(1), 47–57. https:// doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20983. Gravlee, C. C. (2020, April 19). It’s About Race, Not Racism, When Coronavirus Hits Communities of Colour Hard, Column. Tampa Bay Times. Gray, C. F. (2012). White Privilege: Exploring the (in)visibility of Pakeha Whiteness. (Master of Arts), University of Canterbury. Harris, R., Cormack, D., Tobias, M., Yeh, L.-C., Talamaivao, N., Minster, J., et al. (2012). The Pervasive Effects of Racism: Experiences of Racial Discrimination in New Zealand Over Time and Associations with Multiple Health Domains. Social Science & Medicine, 74(3), 408–415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. socscimed.2011.11.004. Kolchin, P. (2002). Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America. Journal of American History, 89(1), 154–173. https://doi. org/10.2307/2700788. Leckie, J. (2007). Indian Settlers: The Story of a New Zealand South Asian Community. Otago University Press. McCabe, J. (2014). Kalimpong Kids: The Lives and Labours of Anglo-Indian Adolescents Resettled in New Zealand between 1908 and 1938. (Doctor of Philosophy), University of Otago, Retrieved from http://hdl.handle. net/10523/5072. McCabe, J. (2017). Race, Tea and Colonial Resettlement. Bloomsbury. McMenamin, D. (2010). Raj Days to Down Under: Voices from Anglo India to New Zealand. Dorothy McMenamin. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. (2019, February 26). Anti-Chinese Hysteria in Dunedin. Retrieved May 30, 2020, from https://nzhistory.govt.nz/ anti-­chinese-­hysteria-­dunedin. Mullings, L. (2005). Interrogating Racism: Toward an Antiracist Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34(1), 667–693. https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev.anthro.32.061002.093435. Ongley, P., & Pearson, D. (1995). Post-1945 International Migration: New Zealand, Australia and Canada Compared. The International Migration Review, 29(3), 765–793. https://doi.org/10.2307/2547504.

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Paradies, Y. (2006). A Systematic Review of Empirical Research on Self-Reported Racism and Health. International Journal of Epidemiology, 35(4), 888–901. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl056. Rivera, C. (2016). Diasporic Anglo-Indians in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK: A Review of the Scholarly Literature. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 16(2), 22. Smedley, A., & Smedley, B. D. (2005). Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race. American Psychologist, 60(1), 16–26. https://doi. org/10.1037/0003-­066X.60.1.16. Spoonley, P., & Butcher, A. (2009). Reporting Superdiversity. The Mass Media and Immigration in New Zealand. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 30(4), 355–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256860903213638. Statistics New Zealand. (2013). 2013 Census Ethnic Group Profiles: Anglo Indian (Census Data). Retrieved March 15, 2015, from New Zealand Government, http://m.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-­census/profile-­and-­summary-­reports/ ethnic-­profiles.aspx?request_value=24749&tabname=Keyfacts&p=y&printall= true&p=y&printall=true.

CHAPTER 9

The Dilemma of Anglo-Indian Identity in Pakistan Dorothy McMenamin

Introduction At the outset this chapter briefly describes the origins of Anglo-Indian settlement in north-west British India, subsequently present-day Pakistan. This demonstrates the markedly different colonization process from what occurred centuries earlier in the south and east, particularly Madras and Calcutta.1 A short historical description of British institutions and lifestyles is outlined to provide a backdrop to Anglo-Indian lives in the first decades of Pakistan. I go on to show that the creation of Pakistan led to a dilemma Thanks are due to the University of Otago for a Bursary Scholarship in support of this chapter which is derived from my 2019 doctoral dissertation referred to and cited herein. 1  Present day Chennai and Kolkata. Colonial names are used when referring to the British period.

D. McMenamin (*) University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_9

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of identity due to the disruption of the term Anglo-Indian and its affiliation with British India which, like the partition of the subcontinent, was torn asunder with the emergence of two independent states. The category Anglo-Indian was not included in the Pakistan census, and reasons why the epithet has gradually ceased to be used is postulated. The author is an Anglo-Indian born and schooled in Pakistan whose family migrated to England in 1963, and she has resided in New Zealand since 1977. Between 1996 and 2008, I recorded oral histories with Anglo-­ Indians who emigrated from different parts of what had been British India to New Zealand, describing their lifestyles and shifting identity (McMenamin 2010). In 2013 my focus turned to Anglo-Indian lives in Pakistan, and accordingly, further oral histories were recorded with migrants from Pakistan to other countries such as Australia, England, the USA and Canada. In 2015 I travelled to Australia and England to record oral histories, and in 2016 I visited Pakistan to interview Anglo-Indians who had stayed on. A combined total of sixty-five oral histories were recorded with Anglo-Indian migrants from South Asia, forty-seven of these being interviewees who had lived in Pakistan, including six who stayed on; another ten informal interviews were conducted with Anglo-­ Indians in Pakistan. For privacy reasons, pseudonyms are employed for some of the interviewees. The post-2013 oral histories contain testimonies illuminating the varied political conditions from the inception of Pakistan through to the changing climate of Islamization during the 1970s up to the present. These testimonies demonstrate that post-1947 Anglo-Indians moved away from employment in the railways, telegraph and postal services to take up jobs in the armed forces and other new industries. This shift from railway jobs differs from Anglo-Indian lives in India where such employment in the first two decades was protected by law and Anglo-Indian identity took a political turn, detailed below. With Islamization from the 1970s in Pakistan, the choice arose whether Anglo-Indians wished to maintain or forsake their traditional western lifestyle. The majority chose to emigrate, whilst those who stayed on gradually saw their ethnic identity blurred, becoming ‘invisible’ Anglo-Indians. Being invisible led to an absence in public awareness of Anglo-Indians. Essentially, the ingrained western-­ oriented ethnicity of an Anglo-Indian, together with Pakistani nationality, created a dual identity similar to that of other migrant Anglo-Indians who have been described as transnationals (Blunt 2005, p. 10). The implications of this scenario on Anglo-Indian identity in Pakistan is explored.

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Background Situation in the Region that Became Pakistan The north-west region of the Indian subcontinent did not come under British rule until the mid-nineteenth century, about two hundred years later than Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, and only about a hundred years prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The contrasting historical precedents at this important margin of empire contributed to Anglo-Indian lifestyles developing under favourable conditions, with an identity and status that differed from impoverished groups reported in east and south India. It is important to note that, as in India, Anglo-Indians were identifiable by their European attire, Christian cultural practices and conventional western lifestyles, which included both men and women socializing in British-styled clubs and venues. The skin complexion of most Anglo-­ Indians varied from fair, similar to the British, to brown which was akin to northern Indian colouring, which meant the main identifier was culture rather than colour. People with southern Dravidian colouring were distinctive so that Goans were more easily recognisable, although they shared what were considered to be Anglo-Indian lifestyles and employment opportunities. It was the availability of affordable senior western education to all Anglo-Indians in pre-Pakistan areas, together with the availability of a corresponding good level of employment, that ensconced the high social status of Anglo-Indians. By 1849 Punjab and Sind came under the administration of the Bengal Presidency and large numbers of Anglo-Indians from established centres were lured to the region by employment prospects in public works following the expansion of the new technologies of rail and telegraph. Between 1858 and 1880 Bombay was connected by rail to Madras, Allahabad, Calcutta, Multan and Lahore. Lahore station opened in 1862 and became the centre of colonial security in the north-west (Kerr 2003, pp. 289–291). By 1878, the rail link extended to a new port being built at Karachi which attracted Goans and Anglo-Indians engaged in equivalent jobs in Bombay, where these groups prospered (Ansari 2015, pp.  10–13). Anglo-Indian staff were accommodated by the British in quality subsidized accommodation, called railway, telegraph or other specific employment-related colonies which were erected adjacent to railway stations, telegraph offices and other workplaces (Kerr 2003, p. 295). Arrival of the first Anglo-Indians together with their families, simultaneously with British army garrisons and administrators in the mid-nineteenth

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century, had an impact on the attitudes of local people. That is, local people perceived Anglo-Indians as being ‘British’ and, at that time, the term Anglo-Indian applied to the British rather than the mixed-­race groups although the usage later extended to include mixed-race groups. On my research visit to Pakistan in 2016 I found this conflation of the term Anglo-Indian with ‘British’ persisted. Recruitment of Anglo-­Indian workers and families from other areas of British India to the north-­west had been an entirely different experience to what historically had occurred in east and south Indian ports. The earlier settlements took place over several generations and locals were acutely aware of what they considered to be transgressive liaisons and marriages between European men and Indian women. I suggest this difference in historic settlement profoundly impacted local attitudes because the initial perception of Anglo-Indians in the area which became Pakistan was not viewed as transgressive. Coupled with an attitude in the north-west which was accepting of outsiders and intermarriage, it contributed to a positive assessment of the identity and status of Anglo-Indians (McMenamin 2019).2 This is in stark contrast to Brahamanical Hindus who morally advocated strict endogamy, in effect policing bloodlines and miscegenation (Bayly 1999, pp.  48 and 53). Significant reasons for the positive perception by local Muslims of the mixed-race origins of Anglo-Indian identity was the acceptability of miscegenated origins in the region. Here, for millennia, invaders and traders had entered the subcontinent through the two main Himalayan passes and intermarriages regularly occurred. These proud connections are commemorated in names still held in esteem, such as Sikander, derived from Alexander of Macedonia who traversed the Indus region in the fourth century B.C. and where many of the troops settled. Furthermore Arab, Mughal and Persian names signify elite family outsider connections in Pakistan. By the early twentieth century, Lahore was one of the centres of education, and Jeffery Cox (2002, pp. 183 and 211) has shown that missionary institutions made use of qualified ‘Indian’ men and women as doctors and high school teachers. Uther Charlton-Stevens (2016) identified Dr. May Shave as a ‘lady’ medical doctor who qualified at Grant Medical College, 2  This chapter does not include my in-depth exploration of the historical circumstances and vastly differing cultural and religious traditions which prevailed in the north west region that significantly impacted the status of Anglo-Indians.

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Bombay, in 1908. During World War II she was in charge of the Lady Aitchison Hospital in Lahore where she ran her own ‘extensive private practice’ (Charlton-Stevens 2016, p.  7). Charlton-Stevens showed that Shave served in the Lahore Provincial Legislative Council representing Anglo-Indians and was the first female president in 1935. He also revealed that a letter to the Association in 1942 indicated that a Mr. Few was president of the Lahore branch (Charlton-Stevens 2018, p. 228). My interviewees could not shed any light on the Lahore branch of the Anglo-Indian Association nor were they aware of other branches. However, interviewee Ken Brown, whose family lived in Lahore, suggested there was an equivalent leader to Frank Anthony, but with far less fame, Mr. Gibbon.3 None of my interviewees in or from Pakistan had heard of Gibbon, Few, Shave or any association leaders, nor in fact even Frank Anthony, although some had heard of the latter after attending World Reunions. The interviewees had no memory of the long-term survival of Anglo-Indian associations in Pakistan, which is a key difference between Anglo-Indians in Pakistan compared to India where the community took on a marked political identity, points I return to shortly. Many Christian schools in Pakistan, such as Lawrence College in Ghora Gali, Murree, Burn Hall College in Abbottabad and Edwardes College in Peshawar, permitted Indian students as day scholars or boarders prior to 1947, providing evidence of a level of acceptable social mixing between locals and Anglo-Indians. Bob Hansen [b.1918] whose family was in Kashmir was head boy in 1936 at Lawrence College, Ghora Gali (McMenamin 2010, pp. 202–203). He described the living conditions at the school: There were a lot of Indians and Sikhs at the school, and they all mixed together. The school was run along European lines with low fees. Meals were European style … If anyone was Muslim, Hindu or a Sikh they had their own private meal arrangements … There wasn’t any conflict between the two races, religions, and they didn’t have to go to church, as we did every morning. (McMenamin 2010, p. 203)

The testimony of David Leckey [b.1931] indicates that railway employees sent their children not only to railway schools but also to Lawrence College until the 1950s: 3

 Brown, K., 2015, Oral history, Track 4:18–21.

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Being a senior driver [dad] was able to pay, but the fees were quite steep. He did that for all the family [four boys/three girls] … even my dad and uncle went to it. [Lawrence College, Ghora Gali]. (McMenamin 2010, p. 212)

These experiences prior to 1947, including school friendships between Anglo-Indians and locals, set the landscape for Anglo-Indian lifestyles and identity in Pakistan.

Impact of the New Nation on Anglo-Indian Identity The army and state service sectors that Pakistan inherited from the British operated along the same lines during the first decade and Anglo-Indian employment eligibility continued unchanged. As such, Anglo-Indian jobs were largely unaffected by the British departure, apart from some adverse impacts on a few elderly employees whose pension entitlements were curtailed (McMenamin 2010, p.  231). The Pakistan government’s general continuation of British policies contributed to a sanguine, almost complacent, attitude by Anglo-Indians regarding their rights and freedom living in Pakistan. This was engendered by Jinnah’s inauguration speech in Karachi on 11 August 1947 which emphasized equal rights for all: You are free to go to your temples … mosques or to any other place of worship … belong to any religion or caste or creed … starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens. (Bose and Jalal 1998, p. 194)

This statement reassured Anglo-Indians that Jinnah wanted a democratic Pakistan and that their rights to practice Christianity would not be curbed, irrespective of Islam being the predominant ideology. Pakistan came into being at midnight on 14/15 August 1947, simultaneously with India’s Independence when ‘at the stroke of the midnight hour’, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, made his ‘tryst with destiny’ speech rejoicing in India’s freedom from colonial rule on 15 August (Hiro 2015, p. 103; Keay 2000, p. 503). One of the many disappointments in Pakistan regarding partition decisions was the retention of the name ‘India’, rather than adoption of the indigenous name, Bharat, or the name regularly used, especially by Jinnah, during negotiations, Hindustan (Jalal 1985, pp. 248 and 273–278). This meant that instead of ‘India’ representing a shared rich heritage, the name became the ‘other’ of

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Pakistan and vice versa. The tensions resulting from this nation naming affected the term ‘Anglo-Indian’, which had come to symbolize the mix of British and Indian ancestry. In Pakistan use of the descriptor diminished to simply ‘Anglo’ because the communal identification of ‘Anglo-Indian’ with India was considered inappropriate, and the natural alternative ‘Anglo-Pakistani’ failed to convey the significant older historical colonial context. Anglo-Indians saw their heritage derive from British India, not independent India or newly formed Pakistan. Interviewees Fred Lord and Herb Brown, both born before 1947, respectively, explained their reasoning behind this naming dilemma: I call myself an Anglo-Indian. Never used the term Anglo-Pakistani, no one ever said Anglo-Pakistani. It was either Anglos, or Anglo-Indians … I was born in India, there wasn’t a Pakistan at that time … Because the generation that we were, we all came from India, so we called ourselves Anglo-Indians.4 I was born in British India. But I have never introduced myself as British, I am very proud to say I am an Anglo-Indian. I do say I lived in Pakistan, born and raised in Lahore which is Pakistan … My younger brother and kid sister, they are actually Anglo-Pakistani but they call themselves Anglo-Indians.5

Partition and Its Immediate Effects on Anglo-Indians The exchange of Hindus and Sikhs moving from west Punjab into India, and Muslims from what became Independent India into Pakistan, was beset by horrendous violence. Despite being caught amid the violence, even as train drivers or passengers crossing the new boundary, Anglo-­ Indians were not targeted by the violence (McMenamin 2019, pp. 121–156; 2006). The following experience indicates the friendly relationship between locals and Anglo-Indians at that time. Rob Abbot was a thirteen-year-old boarder at Bishop Cotton School in Simla on 15 August 1947. He said there were many Muslims at the school including the head boy. The English and Hindu boys stayed on, but after ‘great farewells, hugging and kissing’, all the Muslim boys ‘went marching off in the middle of the 4 5

 Lord, F., 2015, Oral history, Track 3:27–31.  Brown, H., 2015, Oral history, Track 2:1.50–1.58.

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night, under army escort and put on army transport’ (McMenamin 2010, pp.  134–135). Sometime later the Hindu and Christian boys were also sent home, and on the train through Ambala, Rob witnessed a ‘fight going on the platform and a bloke cut another’s head virtually off. I mean he couldn’t have put it back on again, put it that way. It was right in front of my eyes, only six feet away’ (McMenamin 2010, p.  135). Guarded by soldiers, the train continued on its journey. On the way Rob saw columns of people headed each way for about forty miles without a break, yet despite the volatile and often random partition violence, Anglo-Indians moved safely across the new boundary. Many Anglo-Indians became aware of the good employment opportunities available in Pakistan, especially following the exodus of affluent Hindus, Sikhs and some Indian Christians vacating jobs. This induced several families to transfer to Pakistan and take up the vacancies (McMenamin 2019). Conversely, some transferred to India, such as Rani Sircar’s family, Bengali Brahmins converted to Christianity, who chose to return to Bengal (Sircar 2013, p. 82). Roy Engles said his father chose to remain in Lahore because of his good employment as a teacher, although most of their immediate family moved to India.6 Charles Harvey explained that Anglo-Indian identity in Pakistan remained tied to their British or European heritage, so after partition, like their counterparts in India, large numbers emigrated at the same time as the British: the Anglo-Indian culture was that England was home, not Pakistan or India. So when Partition took place … my dad was offered to come to England, but he said no he was quite happy in Pakistan.7

Charles’ father lived out his days in Pakistan, although his offspring emigrated following the political changes in the 1970s. Betty Doyle, my mother, said that the British assisted Anglo-Indians to emigrate to England or other countries if their ancestry proved entitlement to British subject passports. Her parents and siblings were assisted to emigrate to Australia during 1947–48, whilst her own family emigrated on British subject passports to England in 1963. Similarly, Angela Harvey demonstrated that during this early period the British assisted Anglo-Indian families to migrate, describing her family experience: 6 7

 Engles, R., 2015, Oral history, Track 2:13–16.  Harvey, A. and C., 2015, Oral history, Track 1:44-end.

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All our family [emigrated], mum was the only one of her sisters and brothers left [in Pakistan] … Dad should have left in 1947 or 1948, as they were all given this ten pound assisted passages to England. That is how mum’s family came. Yes, there was assistance, I know because mum’s family came like that. A lot of mum’s uncles and aunts, cousins and all, came like that.8

Subsequently,  after the mid-1950s, Anglo-Indians who obtained Pakistani passports faced increasingly stringent immigration procedures (Charlton-Stevens 2018, pp. 247 and 268). My parents recognized that both the Indian and Pakistani governments were eager to privilege their own people for employment after Independence. They considered that Anglo-Indians in Pakistan intrinsically understood and accepted this shift in policy because Anglo-Indians had been the previous recipients of privileged jobs by the British, such as in senior positions in the railways (McMenamin 2001). This recognition contributed towards an openness to emigration, especially to England or former colonial territories which had similar western cultural values as Anglo-Indians.

Non-political Identity and Lifestyles in Pakistan Compared to India The conditions for Anglo-Indians in Pakistan had no similarities with the political climate of ‘protection’ provided for Anglo-Indians in the 1950 Constitution of India. In India a legal definition of who was an Anglo-­ Indian was incorporated into the Constitution; in addition, two seats were reserved in Parliament for Anglo-Indians, job protection was provided for ten years in their ‘employment preserves’ and education concessions were offered (Anthony 1969). This legislation provided a high profile for Anglo-Indian association leaders, particularly Frank Anthony who supported Congress politicians. Subsequently, association leaders and Anglo-­ Indians themselves, both nationally and internationally, publicly rallied support for charities to assist poor Anglo-Indians living in slums in Calcutta and Madras. These two groups, political leaders and impoverished Anglo-­ Indians, attracted researchers’ attention but no widescale research into middle-class Anglo-Indian lives in India emerged (Younger 1987; Caplan 2001; Bear 2008).9 The political situation in India has no parallels in 8 9

 Harvey, A. and C., 2015, Oral history, Track 1:44-end.  An exception is Mills (1997) and some exceptions have been noted by Andrews (2014).

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Pakistan; that is, no legal definition was adopted, no seats were reserved in Parliament, no job reservations were put in place and Anglo-Indian associations did not remain active long term. The category Anglo-Indian was not included in the Pakistan constitution or in the census where their identity was subsumed under the classification Christian, so that the population of Anglo-Indians in Pakistan remains unidentified. This research, nevertheless, confirms that Anglo-Indians were well educated, with no indigent groups reported or known to be living in slums. The oral history testimonies indicate that by the 1950s Anglo-Indians in Pakistan ceased to work in the railways.10 The interviewees also describe why children of the older generation did not take up that employment (McMenamin 2019). John and Penny Newman’s parents were in the civil service and army, respectively, and had a good social life in Rawalpindi, but said: John:

I never went to the railway club. I know there was one there and had a lot of good dos, but I don’t think my parents went, maybe dad did though. Up to the early 1950s, we used to go to the Telegraph Club too, for Christmas. Penny: The railway club … the people there I don’t think were Anglo-­ Indian, I think they were Indian or Pakistani Christians, not Anglo-Indians. The Anglo-Indians had either got better jobs or left for England … The ones I can remember were Indian Christians.11 The clubs referred to were employment related, the railway clubs usually called ‘Institutes’. Others were military or civilian clubs where membership was open to Anglo-Indians. Fred Lord noticed that soon after 1947 Anglo-Indians had moved out of the large railway colony in Mughalpura, Lahore: Anglos were diminishing because by the time we actually left school … in places like Mughalpura colony, people would find a house empty. Anglo family gone to the UK or Canada or wherever.12

10  Appendix 2 lists the occupations of all interviewees and parents (McMenamin 2019, pp. 299–301). 11  Newman, J. and P., 2015, Oral history, Track 3:18–21. 12  Lord, F., 2015, Oral history, Track 1:1.02–1.09.

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Although Fred’s father had been an engine driver, after leaving school, Fred did not seek employment in the railways, nor did other youngsters. Railway jobs had lost the perks offered by the British, such as accommodation and better wages; instead good employment was available with foreign firms and new technologies like the airlines. Anglo-Indians successfully sought these jobs, undermining a recent suggestion that Anglo-Indians comprised a ‘railway caste’ (Bear 2008, p. 107). In the section on employment I show the latter was no longer the case after the late 1940s in newly created Pakistan. Soon after Independence, several mission schools closed because of falling rolls due to high Anglo-Indian emigration, although the schools which remained were in demand by local Pakistani and Anglo-Indian families. A few families who could not afford the fees were offered subsidized or free education (McMenamin 2019, pp. 182–193).13 Tony Mendonça described how, irrespective of his parent’s diminished circumstances, he and his eleven siblings received a good free education at St. Patrick’s in Karachi (McMenamin 2010, p. 231). Families in financial difficulties were given local assistance so that members were not made destitute or forced to live in slums, as appears to have been the case in India. Support for poor elderly Anglo-Indians at various times and in different ways in Pakistan was provided by affluent Anglo-Indians. An instance of this was by the Braganza family who owned several large properties, including the Braganza Hotel, a lively establishment opposite Lahore railway station.14 In 1887 the Braganzas donated land and buildings in the central city to the Lahore Charitable Association, including a building run as a retirement home for elderly Anglo-Indians known as Gosha-e-Aman ‘A Strangers Home’. In the 1980s, the home was administered by Catholic nuns and open to those with or without family support and/or with or without personal financial means. Subsequently, it was managed by Caritas for the few remaining residents until it was closed in 2012.15 Apart from one interviewee who said her family lost contact with a sibling who had fallen to drugs, none of the interviewees knew of any Anglo-Indians living in Pakistani slums. 13  A case study of a Christian children’s home, St. Faith’s in Rawalpindi, confirms that quality education was made available to all Anglo-Indian children. 14  Conversation with Ms. Braganza, a retired principal, and family members. 15  Church Property: Demolition denounced, The Express Tribune, 10.1.2012. Accessed 24.11.2017. https://tribune.com.pk/story/319374/punjab-government-razes-chrtistiancompound-chapel-despite-stay-orders/

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Social Lives Before 1970s Debates continued during the early decades as to whether Pakistan would be a democratic or an Islamic-styled state (Khan 1999, p. 172). It was not until after the early 1970s when Zulfikar Bhutto became president that the lifestyle of Anglo-Indians began to be restricted. Prior to this time, Anglo-­ Indian clubs, which were usually work-related establishments, and Christian churches functioned as before Independence. Churches held regular weekly and special midnight services at Christmas and Easter, which most interviewees attended; social gatherings accompanied the religious festivals, along with regular dances. These social events where Anglo-Indians enjoyed gathering had no restrictions on music, dancing, bingo, alcohol sales, English film viewings and numerous sporting events including pagal [mad] gymkhana games and swimming galas for men, women and children. In fact, during this early period, Pakistani families often joined in Anglo-Indian events if they enjoyed such activities, especially Muslim men who were willing to bring their wives and/or children, such as Khurshid Anwer (2014).16 Shaheena Yusuf, whose father was a veterinarian in the Pakistan army, said that her parents, although Muslims, regularly attended dances at the Rawalpindi military Burra Club [Senior Club] where western-­style entertainment was enjoyed.17 She maintained many Muslim families attended these events and I too regularly witnessed Muslim couples joining dance parties at clubs during my life in Rawalpindi where I resided until 1963. Describing the social interactions in the 1960s, John Roberts gave an example of what he felt was the easy camaraderie between Anglo-Indians and their Muslim friends. When Elvis Presley became a music phenomenon in Pakistan, John commented in surprise to his friends that with his dark hairstyle Elvis ‘looked more like a Mossie’ to which he said no offence was meant or taken.18 Their shared interest in modern music was of more interest than his shortened slang for a Muslim. Other interviewees confirmed ‘Mossie’ was a common term between Anglo-Indians and their Muslim friends; similar perhaps to the term ‘Paki’ which had been often used, now deemed ‘racist’ but initially a mere shortened descriptive. These comments reflect the casual relationships that existed between young groups in Pakistan which shifted as the political climate changed.  A pictorial example of such a lifestyle is provided by Anwer 2014.  Yusuf, S., 2016, Oral history, Track 3:17–22. 18  Roberts, J., 2013, notes, p. 7. 16 17

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Employment, Status and Identity As described earlier, after 1947, Anglo-Indians who worked in the railways, telegraph and postal services for the British ceased seeking employment in these positions due to the diminishment of earlier working conditions, especially the surpassing of rail by truck and air transportation, and because better jobs were available in these new technologies as well as in oil and irrigation. This section shows that before 1970s all levels of employment were available to Anglo-Indians with either private companies or in the government. My father worked as a medical doctor since 1945 in the region, joining Attock Oil Company in 1948 which built its own free hospitals for all employees, social clubs in each working hub and a refinery at Morgah, where my family lived. The company employed Anglo-Indians as clerical staff and professionals, as well as engineers and oil drillers in oil-fields at Khaur and Balkassar.19 Several Anglo-Indians worked for western companies engaged in public works, for example, the gigantic Mangla and Tabela Dam projects.20 Anglo-Indians found employment with foreign companies who were contracted to undertake these large projects. When looking for his first job in about 1958, Fred Lord explained why Anglo-Indians were attracted to jobs with foreign companies rather than seeking past jobs, such as with the railways: The government gave contracts to companies like the Americans … for bridges, canals, dams and army bases … I remember when I first started working, I worked for an American company … This is where the Anglo-­ Indians came in the fore, because … when we Anglo boys applied for jobs and we could actually talk English … [we were] given priority straight away … priority for top jobs.21

During the first two decades of Pakistan, Anglo-Indians were promoted to senior positions in the Pakistan government and armed forces. Several interviewees considered that Anglo-Indians were highly respected by the early governments, particularly the regime of President Ayub Khan. Ayub favoured them for their impartiality at a time of divisive political activity  Details in oral histories of St. Clair-Smith, 2015; Walker, 2015; and States, 2015.  Roberts, J., 2013, Oral history, Track 9:12–16; emails and notes of conversations with Mitter, R. and Morton, J., July 2016. Also see https://www.facebook.com/ Mangla-Dam-Memories-66524049374/. 21  Lord, F., 2015, Oral history, Track 1:1.12–1.18. 19 20

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and for the stalwart service they had provided in security and civil leadership roles after the British withdrew.22 Ken Brown, an army officer, commented that Ayub Khan had appointed an Anglo-Indian, ‘Bobby’ Cornelius as his second-in-command, so that ‘whenever President Ayub was out of the country, Chief Justice Cornelius would be Acting President of the country’.23 Cornelius is categorized as a ‘Christian’ as the term ‘Anglo-Indian’ was not included in the census. Some Anglo-Indians, whose parents had served in the railways, post or telegraph, shifted to the police force. The wife of Ken Blunt, Inspector of Police in Punjab, believed that most senior police officers in Pakistan were Anglo-Indians until the early 1970s.24 Examples of these officers were fathers of interviewees, including Fred Innis who in 1970s was appointed Superintendent of Police for Baluchistan.25 The father of Brian Brookes retired as Acting Inspector General of Police in Sind in 1988.26 Blossom Greig’s father served in the Karachi police for thirty-seven years but noticed that by the 1970s conditions began to change as Muslims became favoured for promotion. Her father waited seventeen years to be promoted from Inspector to Deputy Superintendent, which meant no interim salary increases.27 All Anglo-Indian men who served in the government had to maintain Pakistani nationality, although their Anglo-Indian ethnicity led them to socialize at western-styled entertainment venues or at Anglo-Indian clubs. Anglo-Indian men who had served in the British India Royal Air force, which in 1947 was divided into the Royal Pakistan Air force and Royal Indian Air Force, continued their service within their nation of residence. Some of these men, including Eric Hall in the Pakistan air force and his friend Charlie Nicholas who remained in India, were pitted against each other in subsequent wars between India and Pakistan.28 Hall rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshall, as did another Anglo-Indian, Mick O’Brian  Brookes, B. 2016, Oral history, Track 1:25–27.   Brown, K., 2015, Oral history, Track 4:18–21. Cornelius was Chief Justice of Pakistan 1960–1968. See https://www.christiansinpakistan.com/ pakistani-christian-hero-justice-alvin-robert-cornelius/. 24  Personal conversation, also in Blunt, K., 1996, Interview transcript, p. 5. 25  Innis family, 2015, Oral history Track 1:12–18. 26  Brookes, B., 2016, Oral history, Track 1:22–25 and 46–49. 27  Greig, G., 2013, Interview notes, p. 2. 28  Personal email 3.3.2017 Audrey Wilson, cousin of Eric Hall. See also http://www. christiansinpakistan.com/eric-g-hall-a-notable- christian-pilot/ 22 23

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(Muthiah and MacLure 2013, p. 123).29 Anglo-Indians in India also rose to high ranks in the Indian Air Force, one of the earlier airmen being Wing Commander Leslie Blunt (Anthony 1969, pp. 442–443), brother of interviewee, Ken Blunt in Pakistan.30 Leslie was acclaimed as the first pilot who landed an Indian aircraft at Srinagar during the Kashmir crisis (Anthony 1969, p. 443), while Ken served in the Pakistan boundary police at the same time. These positions demonstrate that whether serving in Pakistan, or in India as evidenced by the Keeler brothers later achievements in the 1965 Indo-Pak war, Anglo-Indians could rise to the highest ranks (Muthiah and MacLure 2013, p. 122). All these men remained loyal to their respective countries of abode, although there was anxiety about family members and friends serving in armies at war with each other. Ken Brown joined the Pakistan army in 1955 but in 1974 as a Lieutenant Colonel he took early retirement and emigrated to Australia.31 This was because he noticed that after the 1965 war, conservatism and religious enthusiasm increased among Muslim officers.32 Participation in war was unattractive to Anglo-Indians for these reasons and, as noted above, because they did not wish to be pitted against relatives or friends serving in the Indian army. Migration became the preferred option, confirming their Christian and western identity. This, in fact, remains consistent with the historical reluctance of Anglo-Indians to identify with the predominant cultures of Islam or Hinduism in the land of their birth. Nevertheless, the testimonies of Ken Blunt, Brian Brooks, Innis family, Ken Brown and Angela Harvey confirm that they or their family members attained senior positions during the first three decades of Pakistan. This confirms that Anglo-Indian identity did not bar entry to senior positions in government or industry, indicating a good social status.

Government Policies and their Effects Post 1970s Under the government of Zulfikar Bhutto in 1972, the widescale nationalization of foreign industries and schools resulted in Muslims being further favoured for jobs (Burki 1980, pp.  114, 118, 123). In particular, nationalization of schools led to a fall in standards in most Anglo-Indian  Mick O’Brian was brother-in-law of Ken Brown, 2015, Oral history, Track 3:3–6.  Anthony F. never referred to the parallel gallant service of Anglo-Indians in Pakistan. 31  Brown, D., 2015, Oral history, Track 1:21–23. 32  Brown, K., 2015, Oral history, Track 4:1–6. 29 30

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schools (Burki 1980, pp. 128–30). A new school curriculum sidelined the old British Cambridge school certificate exams, replacing it with the local matric exam, causing Anglo-Indian families concern about quality education and inducing them to emigrate. Anglo-Indians were unhappy about curriculum changes, particularly the inclusion of Islamic studies in what had been their Christian schools. In this sense, Anglo-Indians were possibly less tolerant of Muslim practices taught in schools than Muslim families who sent their children to Christian schools. Muslim children routinely joined in Christian lessons and activities, although some schools offered a choice to opt out of these. At my school, where the vast majority of students were Muslim, all the children joined in such activities; some have told me that they still enjoyed singing carols at Christmas. However, the curriculum changes led to most of the mission school staff gradually leaving Pakistan. The lower standards resulted in expensive private western-style schools opening, and Anglo-­ Indians began to enroll their children in these to ensure high educational standards and eligibility for good employment. Lester Field said that his son’s work was marked down in his old school, but Lester’s complaints went unheeded, so he withdrew his son and enrolled him in an expensive private school.33 Beverley Stephens explained that she moved her children from her own old school to a new private school for quality education and to try to avoid pressures on them to convert to Islam.34 In the 1977 election, in bids to elicit additional support from Islamist clerics, Bhutto imposed a prohibition on alcohol sales (Wolpert 1993, p. 288). These sales were banned in public, including in clubs and bars, although sales were permitted to non-Muslims so that Anglo-Indians could consume alcohol in their homes (Wolpert 1993, pp. 282–288; Khan 1999, p.  179). The effect of these laws on Anglo-Indian lifestyles was noticed by Blossom Greig [b.1961] then living with her family in Karachi. The city had been a metropolitan centre with a thriving night life which had slowed down following the construction of the new capital of Islamabad. Blossom recalled that during her brother’s youth (twelve years her senior), he and his peers had enjoyed an outgoing social life and his girlfriends experienced no problems wearing sleeveless blouses or mini-­ skirts in public.35 When Blossom was a young adult, she noticed ‘things  Burns family, 2016, Oral history, Track 1:30–35 and Track 2:6–8.  Stephens, B., 2016, Oral history, Track 1:5–12. 35  Greig, B., 2013, Interview notes, p. 4. 33 34

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started to change when Zulfikar Bhutto came into power. He shut down bars and night clubs and alcohol could not be served’.36 Because the clubs that Anglo-Indians had attended ceased to hold functions like bingo, dances, film nights, billiards and cards, only sporting facilities such as tennis and badminton continued. However, Anglo-­ Indians regularly socialized, without alcohol, on various days and Sunday afternoons at the premises of the Catholic Church in Rawalpindi. Social events were held at the Catholic Club and Beverley Stephens recalled the circumstances when that club was closed: In the heydays, there would be about 300 people who would go to the Catholic Club … up to about 1974 … it was the holy month of Ramzan and they closed the club down, this was in July ... when they opened it, there was housie on the 15th August … my mum and I were going there when we met two nuns. They said no, don’t go to the Catholic Club because the police are in the church … One of the fellows said that we [Anglo-Indian Christians] were celebrating India’s independence! The people had come for bingo, and were there, but they just closed the club, and it never opened again.37

The restrictions limiting Anglo-Indian social lives and changes in the school curricula contributed to the increased wave of emigration in the 1970s. Due to the reduction of Anglo-Indian residents, interviewees noticed that intermarriages increased. Prudence Lehaney said that ‘not many Anglo-Indians and Muslims married until around the later 1970s. It was unusual at first but then we all got used to it’.38 Her two older sisters married Pakistani men and converted to Islam despite the men’s families being opposed to marriage to Christians.39 Both sisters took Muslim names and raised their children as Muslims; but it was not until each first child was born that the respective in-laws recognized the marriages and invited them into their homes.40 Both husbands have prosperous businesses so that the families were able to regularly visit relatives in the US where in fact some of the children were educated. Prudence, whose employers had transferred her to Washington where she settled, added  Greig, B., 2013, Interview notes, p. 10.  Stephens, B., 2015, Oral history, Track 1:1–3. 38  Lehaney, P., 2016, Questionnaire, p. 6. 39  Lehaney, P., 2016, Questionnaire, pp. 1 and 6. 40  Lehaney, P., email, 9.7. 2018. 36 37

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that her sisters were not interested in emigrating because they could visit and had ‘better lives than we do here, with maids and cooks’.41 Instances where couples intermarried and chose to remain in Pakistan were successful if the Pakistani spouse accepted a westernized lifestyle and/or the Anglo-Indian partner willingly converted to Islam and/or moderated their western lifestyle. However, several Anglo-Indian intermarriages had not been successful, whereas others found that intermarriages were often easier for couples if they emigrated away from the pressures of traditional Muslim relatives and the increasingly Islamist agenda pervading Pakistan. Other Anglo-Indians who had lived abroad but returned to live in Pakistan kept their dual nationality if possible. In terms of identity, those who married Pakistanis and lived in Pakistan were Pakistani nationals, whilst maintaining their Anglo-Indian ethnicity privately.

Effects of Radical Islamist Agendas from 1980s The radical laws introduced by the Islamist dictator Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s led to another large wave of Anglo-Indian emigration. Women on television had to wear a chador or keep their heads covered, practices not previously customary, and as a result of the laws, working women were made out to be immoral (Jalal 2014, pp.  247 and 249). The shalwar kameez were promoted as the national dress of Pakistan. These policies impacted on Anglo-Indian women, particularly those in the workforce; for example, Blossom Greig said she often wore shalwar kameez to work instead of western attire, much to her father’s displeasure.42 But none of the women adopted purdah. The value of education was recognised by all the Anglo-Indian interviewees, irrespective of the increased expense. Peter and Diana Burns remained in Pakistan because they had good jobs with foreign institutions.43 Their four children were born in the 1980–1990s and they said ‘we paid through our noses for them to be educated, in private schools’.44 Prudence Lehaney married and had her family in Pakistan and said that

 Lehaney, P., email, 9.7. 2018.  Greig, B., 2013, Interview notes, p. 14. 43  Burns family, 2015, Oral history, Track 1:30-end. 44  Burns family, 2015, Oral history, Track 2:6–8. 41 42

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she too paid expensive private school fees for her children.45 Beverley Stephens enrolled her children in private schools in the 1990s to receive a better education and also because radical Wahhabi influences began to pervade state schools and Christian children were increasingly approached to convert to Islam, making their school lives difficult. A son of Beverley Stephens and two of the Burns children experienced the unwelcome pressure to convert. The Burns children said they came to an agreement with their Muslim friends not to talk about religion.46 Additionally, they explained what their Pakistani friends knew or thought about Anglo-­ Indian identity: Kevin:  I would say about sixty percent of our friends, the younger generation, my generation [aged 20s], they do know about Anglo-Indians … They call us ‘Anglos’. Nobody says Anglo-Pakistanis. Katherine: Most of our friends are Muslims and they know who we are, that we are Anglos. Then I have to tell them that we are Anglo-Indians, so they know the background … They came asking me what our past is, they know some of the things, but they don’t know the background, so I have to tell them the whole thing. They are okay with it. Kevin: Obviously when they get to know us, they are pretty comfortable with us. Interviewer: Do they ever ask you what is the Indian side of you? No [answered together], never been asked that.47

This testimony implicitly shows that ‘Anglo’ identity was linked to British India, not independent India, and to family genealogical connections to Britain. It is significant that the issue of mixed-race identity was accepted but not queried by the Pakistani friends. Despite being told about an ‘Anglo-Indian’ heritage, friends continued to assume the Burns were British, most likely because ‘Anglo’ referred to their European heritage and the earlier descriptor ‘Anglo-Indian’ had faded from common knowledge.

 Lehaney, P., 2016, Questionnaire, p. 3.  Stephens family, 2016, Oral history, Track 1:8–10; and Burns, Oral history, Track 5:1–3. 47  Burns family, 2016, Oral history, Track 1:1–3. 45 46

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The Dilemma of Staying On A difference between Anglo-Indians in Pakistan interviewed in 2016 compared to the older generation who migrated prior to 1975 was that most of the recent interviewees owned their own homes. The previous generation did not purchase their first home until after emigration. This home ownership trend impacted on the identity of the respective individuals who usually linked their identity and/or nationality to the country where they lived and owned a home. Paul Cortez’s father retired in 1971 in Rawalpindi and had built the home that Paul inherited. The house was in Lal Kurti, an area where many Anglo-Indians had lived. Paul had been employed with the British High Commission and recently retired after forty years.48 His wife had been raised in a Pakistani Christian children’s home attached to the Catholic Cathedral and School, and she ran a nursery school. She said the Catholic school she attended was Urdu medium and that she learnt English only after meeting Paul. The couple had travelled overseas, where their children had emigrated, but they felt more at ease living in Rawalpindi. Since Anglo-Indian numbers had drastically reduced by 2000, those who stayed on, like Paul, often married Pakistani Christians or Muslims. These Anglo-Indians were more likely to identify Pakistan as home and as a stronger part of their identity compared to those who emigrated. Those who stayed on, but did not intermarry, tended to adhere to their western cultural lifestyle rather than adopting Pakistani customs. The Burns owned their home which I visited in a good area in Rawalpindi, but conversely, they did not see ownership as a bind to Pakistan. Peter recognized that previously Anglo-Indians had not invested in property and explained the difference. Peter: It is our generation who are thinking that way ... not necessarily to put roots down … it is an appreciating asset. So the day we do decide, right we have had enough, we have assets … countries like America and Britain, do not really screen the people. They screen your pocket, first … they look at your bank balance … He’s not going to be a burden on the exchequer, let him come in’. Diana: We have tried to emigrate the legal way, but we were told we do not have enough funds … most of the Anglos who lived in Pindi and Lahore, have gone the illegal way ... get a visitor visa … go there, get yourself a lawyer … claim asylum and in six months’ time you have a green  Cortez, P., 2016, Interview, Track 1:1–10 and 19.

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card … That is one of the reasons why the Anglos have started buying houses, because long term when you apply for a visa, resident visa, they say, you own your own property, okay, tick mark. Way to go, the property is worth so much, good.49

The above strategy worked to obtain visas more easily to either travel overseas or to emigrate, although international exchange rates and monetary costs of living in respective countries worked against qualifying as a migrant. It is clear the Burns enjoyed a good lifestyle in Pakistan but becoming an older section of the workforce in a radicalized Wahhabi climate, they felt emigration might be an attractive option in the future. This dual identification as Pakistani nationals with western ethnicity from a British ancestor points to a transnational identity. Anglo-Indians have always been happy to marry westerners, and as marriageable westerners were usually male, it was Anglo-Indian women who married when the opportunity arose. This was the choice faced by Blossom Greig who met and married a New Zealander working in Pakistan. She emigrated in 1994 sadly leaving her family behind. Blossom’s nephew and his wife held good jobs at different schools and had considered emigration but were loath to uproot and ‘Get rid of one set of problems for another’.50 In addition to the security of owning their own home in Pakistan, her nephew needed to support his elderly father, Blossom’s brother. The couple in Karachi said they no longer had Anglo-Indian friends locally and all the earlier clubs, except a small Goan club, had closed. Nevertheless, not all Anglo-Indians in Pakistan wished to emigrate. Beverley Stephens stayed on despite overseas visits to her adult children who had emigrated, as did Paul Cortez above. Four other anonymous interviewees, other than those already specified, preferred living in Pakistan because they felt ‘more at home,’ and they also felt fulfilled helping poorer Pakistanis, either through providing education, training schemes or assisting charities. Additionally, some enjoyed the freedom from the regulated lifestyles in the West, as young Christopher Watts intimated. Christopher was taken to Scotland as a boy by his father but returned as a young man and preferred living in Pakistan, despite saying that since 2002 nearly all

 Burns, 2016, Oral history, Track 4:7-end.  Nephew of Blossom Greig, Interview notes, p. 2.

49 50

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the Anglo-Indians had emigrated, adding ‘If you ask anybody [today], they wouldn’t even know who Anglos are’.51 My experience whilst visiting Pakistan in 2016 confirmed Christopher’s opinion that most Pakistanis today are unaware of the terms ‘Anglo-­ Indian’ or even ‘Anglo’. Whilst taking domestic flights within Pakistan I was often asked by passengers what I was doing in the country. Whenever I mentioned my research topic I was faced with a puzzled expression and comment ‘sorry, never heard of Anglo-Indians’. However, if the conversation continued and I explained their identity, I would regularly be told ‘oh, you mean someone like my friend John Smith/Mary Jones who was with me at school? I thought he/she was British!’ Such responses confirm that Anglo-Indian identity remains conflated with the British. Additionally, it shows their status was associated with middle- to upper-class Pakistanis because both Anglo-Indian and Pakistani children attended the same expensive private schools. More than seventy years after Independence, the Anglo-Indians who stayed on in Pakistan continued to enjoy a good quality of life despite the enforced invisibility of their ‘Anglo’ identity. The dangers posed by Islamist radicals to all non-conforming groups meant that Anglo-Indians no longer felt safe perpetuating their traditional western identity in public spaces; although I met a few who continued to do so in the upper-class suburbs where they either lived or worked.

Conclusion This research shows that from the inception of Pakistan in 1947, due to specific regional cultural attitudes and the different migratory process of Anglo-Indians into the north-west, good jobs and a corresponding high status became associated with Anglo-Indian identity. Post-independence, due to diminishing working conditions in their earlier employment preserves in the railways, telegraph and post, Anglo-Indians ceased seeking jobs in those fields, thereby negating the label ‘railway caste’ designated to Anglo-Indians in India. Instead the interviewees took up employment with the Pakistan government and armed forces, as well as private companies engaged in new industries. More than seventy years after Independence the Anglo-Indian interviewees showed that those who stayed on continued to enjoy a good quality of life. During this period the dual descriptor Anglo-Indian became  Watts, C., 2016, Interview, Track 3:1-end.

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ubiquitously shortened to ‘Anglo’ because the second part of the term appeared to refer to independent India, rather than to their connection with British India. This again conflated Anglo-Indian identity with the British contributing to the disappearance of the longer descriptive term Anglo-Indian. This disappearance was compounded by the extremely few ‘Anglos’ remaining in Pakistan since the vast majority had migrated by the 1980s due to dangers posed by radical Islamists making Anglo-Indians feel unsafe if they wished to maintain their Christian identity and western attire in public spaces. ‘Anglos’ who intermarried with Indian Christians or Muslims were more comfortable adopting a Pakistani lifestyle although none of the women wore veils or kept purdah. Their ‘Anglo’ identity remained a private, yet integral part of their personal heritage. The dichotomy of identity evident in Anglo-Indians, especially those who did not intermarry, points to a transnational trend, being Pakistani nationals and citizens, but with an identity derived from western ancestors who had settled in British India. This dual identity, Pakistani with ‘Anglo’ ancestral ties to Britain, is similar to that of Anglo-Indians from Pakistan and India who migrated to western nations and have been described as transnationals. Moreover, this personal western identification is the primary reason why Anglo-Indians emigrated to western countries, and why some still hope to do so in the future. As maintained by interviewees in this project, and confirmed by my own experience in 2016, most Pakistanis today are unaware of the existence of Anglo-Indians, although some are familiar with the shortened epithet ‘Anglos’ which is equated with the British. Significantly, none of the interviewees identified themselves, or have had their identity referred to, as ‘Anglo-Pakistanis’—albeit the description being a useful title with which to identify ‘Anglos’ in or from Pakistan. This lack of any national or local identification connected with the term ‘Anglo’ confirms that the link to a British colonial past, namely Britain and western culture, remains at the heart of Anglo-Indian identity in Pakistan.

References Andrews, R. (2014). Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian Stories and Essays. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Ansari, S. (2015). At the Crossroads? Exploring Sindh’s Recent Past from a Spatial Perspective. Contemporary South Asia, 23(1), 7–25. Anthony, F. (1969). Britain’s Betrayal in India: The Story of the Anglo-Indian Community. Bombay: Allied Publishers.

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Anwer, K. (2014). A Pictorial Journey: All This and Heaven Too. Lahore: University of Punjab. Bayly, S. (1999). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bear, L. (2008). Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy and the Intimate Historical Self. New York: Columbia University Press. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Bose, S., & Jalal, A. (1998). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. New York: Routledge. Burki, S. J. (1980). Pakistan under Bhutto, 1971–1977. London: Macmillan. Caplan, L. (2001). Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World. Oxford: Berg. Charlton-Stevens, U. E. (2016). The Professional Lives of Anglo-Indian Working Women in the Twilight of Empire. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 16(2), 3–29. Charlton-Stevens, U.  E. (2018). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making, and Communal Nationalism. Abington, Oxon: Routledge. Cox, J. (2002). Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hiro, D. (2015). The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry between India and Pakistan. New York: Nation Books. Jalal, A. (1985). The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Jalal, A. (2014). The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Keay, J. (2000). India: A History. London: Harper Perennial. Kerr, I. J. (2003). Representation and Representations of the Railways of Colonial and Post Colonial South Asia. Modern Asian Studies, 37(2), 287–326. Khan, A. (1999). Ethnicity, Islam and National Identity in Pakistan. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 22(1), 167–182. McMenamin, D. (2001). Identifying Domiciled Europeans in Colonial India: Poor Whites or Privileged Community? New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 3(1), 106–127. McMenamin, D. (2006). Anglo-Indian Experiences During Partition and Its Impact Upon Their Lives. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 8(1), 69–95. McMenamin, D. (2010). Raj Days to Downunder: Voices from Anglo India to New Zealand. Christchurch, NZ: McMenamin. McMenamin, D. (2019). Anglo-Indian Lives in Pakistan Through the Lens of Oral Histories. PhD, University of Otago.

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Mills, M. S. (1997). Ethnic Myth and Ethnic Survival: The Case of India’s Anglo-­ Indian (Eurasian) Minority. PhD, York University. Muthiah, S., & MacLure, H. (2013). The Anglo-Indians: A 500-Year History. New Delhi: Niyogi Books. Sircar, R. (2013). Strains in a Minor Key: A Celebration of Sixty Years in Calcutta. Kolkata: Gangchil. Wolpert, S.  A. (1993). Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times. New  York: Oxford University Press. Younger, C. (1987). Anglo-Indians: Neglected Children of the Raj. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp.

CHAPTER 10

From Asansol to Sydney: Terry Morris, Microhistory and Hybrid Identity Arindam Das

Back in 2016 a school friend of mine tagged me in a YouTube video through Facebook that read ‘Streets of Asansol: Australian Country Music by Terry Morris’ to help me relive happy memories of old Asansol (a small railway town 212 kms from Kolkata). Little did I know that this would lead me into a new area of research. With my doctorate in Australian literature and culture, being a resident of Asansol and a student of a Christian Brother Missionary School (St. Patrick’s, Asansol) that had lot many ‘Anglo-Indian’ teachers till 1980s–90s, I was drawn to the nostalgia created in the songs of Terry Morris—the ‘Anglo-Indian-Australian’ from Sydney who originated from Asansol and was an alumnus of my neighbouring school (St. Vincent’s). I searched for Terry Morris on Facebook and sent him a friend request that he accepted. Slowly I came to know more of Morris and his songs. Like many of the ‘Anglo-Indians’, Morris moved from Asansol to Australia in search of ‘greener pastures’ (Morris’ expression during the interview) and to be with members of his family already successfully settled there. Morris honed his musical skills (a talent

A. Das (*) Alliance School of Business, Alliance University, Bangalore, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_10

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he primarily cultivated in Asansol) to become one of the celebrated ‘country music’ singers of Australia. Since then, Morris has written, composed, sung and performed across the globe. My chapter in this book draws on Terry Morris as a microhistoric (Szijártó and Magnússon 2013) case study in investigating the broader narratives of identity for diasporic ‘Anglo-­ Indians’ settled in Australia. ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity and the dilemma surrounding it has been a matter of constant evolvement since the eighteenth century and continues till date. The community’s intrinsic Anglophile aspirations had always propelled them to Western-oriented habits and lifestyle; and yet, its ineluctable Indian location of culture makes it undergo a threshold experience. The migrant experience of this community further adds to its dialectics of identity. Negotiating between the always-already liminal self and the acculturating desires of the modern white first world create a new level of social and psychological response to identity (Fisher and Sonn 1999; James 2001). ‘Anglo-Indians’ who migrated to Australia in search for a ‘home’ could successfully integrate into the public domain, whether due to their Anglo-Celtic skin colour, culture or accent (Gilbert 1996), but faced a dilemma around their identity in the private sphere (Lewin 2002, 163). This dual behaviour in also brought to the fore in my microhistoric case study of Terry Morris where he is at once a subject who structurally fits into white Australia’s totalizing desires and yet suffers from the poststructural differential relation to a fixed identity.

Research Methodology and Microhistory As indicated, this research attempts to understand the minority community of ‘Anglo-Indians’ of my hometown, Asansol, and the effects of migration on their identity. I decided to focus on a particular case study, a microhistoric representation of a larger ideological and historical narrative. It was perhaps the American scholar and polymath George R. Stewart who was the first to dredge up the word microhistory in his Pickett’s Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack on Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 (Stewart 1959). However, credit goes to Italian historians like Carlo Ginzburg, Edoardo Grendi and Giovanni Levi whose works in the 1980s laid the foundation for microhistoric analysis. This particular practice of historiography focusses on issues, events, incidents and characters of lesser and marginal importance. This is not to say that such historiographers only dealt with socio-culturally marginal characters (e.g. criminals) but generally

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characters whom ‘standard’ discourses of macrohistory would never take into account and even dealt with ‘trivial’ phenomenon (e.g. signature on a painting) (Renders and Hann 2014, 5). Further, for its method, microhistory does not have any charted, pre-conditioned scientific investigatory technique, rather it has an ‘obsessive attention to detail’ and ‘practices close reading, looking for nuances in words, actions, and material conditions’ (Cohen 2017, 54). For some critics of microhistory, like Ghobrial, the purpose of such microhistoric analysis is to focus on a microscopic perspective and unravel the ‘teleology and triumphalism of grand narratives’ by reading specific primary sources (Ghobrial 2019, 13). For another group of critics, the focus of microhistory is not in establishing a poststructuralist incredulity to the grand narrative but in finding a link between the macrostructure and the microstructure (e.g. Freedman’s A Poisoned Chalice [2002] and Tucker’s Bloodwork: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution [2011]). It is perhaps these two opposed strains of the purpose of a microhistoric analysis that is married in the microhistoric theory extended by Szijártó and Magnússon (2013). It is this more balanced approach to the purpose of microhistoric analysis that I intend to follow. Historians István M. Szijártó and Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon in their book What is Microhistory: Theory and Practice (2013) define microhistory as ‘the intensive historical investigation of a relatively well defined smaller object, or a single event’ (Szijártó and Magnússon 2013, 4). For Szijártó and Magnússon, microhistory is synecdochical in nature. Microhistory, for Szijártó and Magnússon, is therefore a dual movement that happens at the same site which makes a reader both accept and question history. In this chapter, I demonstrate how Morris’ genealogy, life, immigration background, worldview and songs reveal the making and unmaking of the discourses of ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity and history in Australia. It also demonstrates that it is a nuanced and heterogeneous experience. To better understand Morris I conducted a series of online interviews with him (after which he sent me a set of photographs from his family album); collated data from the website, Reverbnation1 that has collections and some reviews of Morris’ songs; and finally analysed a YouTube music video of Terry Morris called Fred the Indian Bushman—Australian 1  Reverbnation is an online music community that also is a digital storehouse of lyrics of various emerging artists. The community helps in promoting and marketing of songs on a global scale.

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Country Music made in 2008. Over the course of the interviews Morris shared details about his life at Asansol (including his school days and his work at Indian Iron and Steel Company [Burnpur, Asansol]), his genealogical particulars (and his stronger association with his Irish genes), his forming of song bands (mostly with school mates) and playing at various railway towns of Eastern India, such as Kharaghpur, Ranchi and Adra. He also talked about his decision to migrate to Australia, his life as a migrant at Australia, how his pro-western lifestyle helped him better acculturate in a country that he discovered was predominantly white, his strategy to do away with his surname Misra and to use his middle name Morris to pass off as a white Australian during his tour to the Gulf countries in 2011. Besides responding to my questions, Terry generously sent me the lyrics of all his songs otherwise unavailable anywhere. Terry Morris and his personal chronicles, songs and identity issues are at once structuralist and postmodernist. The narratives of Morris’ life and songs structurally add to the documented canonized discourse of ‘Anglo-­ Indian’ migration in Australia. However, at the same time, the structural lacunas within Morris’ performance site become perfect postmodernist zones in having the potency to engage/negotiate with these same historical narratives in a subjective and subversive manner. It is this being both modernist and postmodernist, structurally essentialist and subjectively singularizing that makes Morris’ narrative of ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity-­building a unique double movement of affirmation and undoing. This double movement further corroborates the case of Terry Morris as a perfect exemplum of microhistory. Microhistoric analysis has a dual approach while dealing with a text (Szijártó and Magnússon 2013, 4). First, it investigates, intensively and exhaustively, a local phenomenon/history. Second, it makes an application of this local historical discourse to the understanding of the larger, broader historical narratives. To treat local history as a synecdoche (Szijártó and Magnússon 2013) with reference to the grand history further brings in two antipodal aspects together lodged in a single microhistoric case study. Szijártó and Magnússon (2013) exemplify that any microhistoric case study is not a mere replication of the grand history at one level; but will also have the potency to subvert and appropriate the same grand history from within the structure. This second movement of microhistory (that is deconstructive in nature) gives social agency to the ‘people who … are not puppets on the hands of great underlying forces of history, but they are regarded as active individuals, conscious actors’ (Szijártó and Magnússon 2013, 05). Szijártó and Magnússon believe that

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any microhistorical element does not remain a simple case study substantiating the larger aspect of the history, but it may also have active agents in it who may refashion the history in her/his own style. These active agents who have an individuated approach to the grand history deconstruct it by liminalizing the structure. If liminalizing (as used by Bhabha 1994) means a threshold between the two disparate worlds/ideologies/situations, then the poststructuralist turn of a microhistoric element also negotiates between the two types of the history: the standard canonized and the non-­ standard personalized. Further, agents of microhistory (especially postcolonial) who negotiates, in a poststructuralist manner, the two different ideological spaces in the process turns out to be a ‘mimic man’ (Bhabha 1994) who generates ambivalence and menace in the colonial structure by being ‘white’ ‘but not quite’ (Bhabha 1994, 122). Hence, a microhistoric case may appear naively mimetic, on one hand (in its apparent tendency to reflect the larger issues of history in a micro level), while, on the other hand, through its subversive proposition appears a ‘liminalizing’ (Bhabha 1994) force that delivers the power to the actors of history to become individuated. Terry Morris’ life and identity issues, when discussed, apparently may appear platitudinous. This apparent banality is but hindsight of a general, standard social behaviour of the migrant ‘Anglo-Indians’. Such lifestyle and behaviour structurally conform to the larger paradigm of a known set of bigger historical narratives pertaining to ‘Anglo-Indians’ and their migration in Australia. However, the discussion of the case is undeniably important to highlight how the deconstructing or ‘liminalizing’ (Bhabha 1994) of a historical discourse takes place at a microcosmic level. As I will demonstrate, if Morris conforms to the general structure of migration discourse of ‘Anglo-Indians’ in Australia, in displaying accommodative and acculturating techniques, then he also through his songs and life narratives subverts the same grand history/structure to make a ‘mimic man’ (Bhabha 1994) out of himself within that structure/history.

Anglo-Indians in Australia: Tracing the Prime Narrative Any attempt to make a review of the historic trajectory of migration will be important in understanding the canonized version of the migrant history of ‘Anglo-Indians’ that generally talks about moving away, settling and acculturation tendencies of this minority community. However, when

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the microhistory of Morris is pitted against it, it both conforms to this standard narrative of migration and shows elements of departure from the same. With the troopship HMAS Manoora, that landed in Australia on India’s pre-independence eve from the British Raj, the migration journey of ‘Anglo-Indians’ (anchored in Fremantle on 15 August 1947) was finally realized. It was in 1970s, amidst a more embracing multicultural policy, that the new group of ‘Anglo-Indian’ migrants moved to Australia in search of greener pastures.2 This batch of ‘Anglo-Indians’ were dockyard and railway employees mainly (Lahiri-Dutt 2011, n.pg.) and even ‘doctors, engineers and journalists’, and also teachers and technicians (Gilbert as quoted in Lahiri-Dutt 2011, n.pg.). In 1990s, with British policies of immigration becoming more stringent and England becoming more inaccessible to ‘Anglo-Indians’, the second best option for ‘Anglo-Indians’ was to immigrate to Australia. This phase is also at times dubbed as the ‘reunion phase’—meeting up with family and friends already settled in Australia (Andrews 2007, 37). It is in this ‘family reunification’ phase of the migration trajectory (Massey et  al. 1998, 161; Moch 2005, 98–9) where my case study Terry Morris is (dis)located. The ‘Anglo-Indians’ who migrated to Australia slowly settled down within the national precinct of modern ‘white’ Australia assisted by the pro-western outlook of ‘Anglo-Indians’. Sheila Pais James in her article ‘The Anglo-Indians as mixed Race Identity in Australia’ (2012) believes that the fair skinned ‘Anglo-Indians’ had all the characteristics to become acculturated within the Anglo-Celtic paradigm of ‘white’ Australia. Further, drawing on ‘whiteness theory’, James is of the view that the not-­ so-­white ‘Anglo-Indians’ mostly remain the fringe dwellers of the ‘white’ Australian nation (16–7). However, James (basing her arguments on Hage 2  This phase of Anglo-Indian immigration in Australia in 1970s, however, by Dr. Kuntala Lahiri-Dutta of Australian National University is dubbed as the first phase of Anglo-Indian immigration to Australia:

It is pertinent to remember that for Australia, Anglo-Indians were among the first Asians to immigrate into the country with the relaxation of White Australia Policy. Although according to Gilbert (1996) some Anglo-Indians did migrate to Australia in 1852 and 1854, and an organisation called the South Australian Board of Advice and Correspondence for Anglo-Indian Colonisation was formed the first major phase of immigration was from 1964 till mid 1980s. (n.pg.)

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1998) agrees that whiteness as a hegemonic discourse has shifting parameters of definition, and from a more race-centric concept, it has become a more culture-centric concept in Australia (James 2012, 20). For Hage, as for James, whiteness is no more a matter of skin colour or physical attributes but even a dark-skinned person can lay claim to whiteness if he/she falls within the range of cultural practices of whiteness. This accumulation of cultural whiteness and a desire for gradual integration within the ‘white’ Australian identity (Hage 1998) make Anglo-Indians perceive Australia as their homes. This is to say that the more dark-skinned ‘Anglo-Indians’ do have the essential pre-requisites to become a part of the ‘white’ Australian discourse provided they properly acculturate within the ‘progressive’ (James 2012, 21), ‘superior’ and ‘modern’ paradigm of Australian whiteness. Convincingly, James argues that Australia has become a necessary home for those ‘Anglo-Indians’ who lay a claim on their Anglicized traits and heritage (James 2008, 2009, 2010). No wonder, Glenn D’Cruz (2009) refers to these migrants from India, with their progressive cosmopolitan attitude, as ‘The Good Australians’. The apparently uninsulated policies of multicultural Australia might have been the reason for the first major wave of ‘Anglo-Indians’ to migrate to India, a tradition that further followed with next waves of migration. Yet, it was the ‘white’-ish attitude and culture, if not the skin colour of ‘Anglo-Indians’ only, which made them successful acculturators within the domains of ‘white’ Australia. ‘Anglo-Indian’ academician Michele Lobo conforms to this idea and reflects on her own ability to ‘accumulate whiteness’—a quality achieved through her wearing of westernized dress and inculcation of western food habits and surely in having a Western name. If these were the qualities that made her singularly ‘different’ and as someone who was seen as the ‘other’ in India, then these are the same external attributes that help her pass as an authentic white person to many in Australia. Hence, for Lobo, as for many present-day ‘Anglo-Indians’ of Australia, whiteness remains a constant performative site (Lobo and Morgan 2012).

Terry Morris: History and His-Story In this section I describe Terry Morris’ background and experiences, based on in-depth interviews, and his songs that conjure up the locale and culture of India, Asansol, Australia and Ireland. Terry Morris was born in Patna (in the state of Bihar, India) but grew up in Maithon (which is now in Jharkhand, 25  km from Asansol). He studied in his junior years in

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‘Valley School’ (a Jesuit school now known as De Nobili, Maithon). His mother was a teacher in the junior section of the same school. Later he went to St. Vincent’s High & Technical School at Asansol as a full-time boarder. While in school, he had the opportunity to explore his musical abilities, learning to play the guitar, saxophone, trumpet and drums. He stressed that all along he was more interested in music than academic study. After graduating from school in 1970, and completing his junior engineering diploma course, he gained employment in Indian Iron and Steel Co., in Burnpur, Asansol (recently renamed IISCO Steel Plant, a Unit of Steel Authority of India) as a superannuative operator in the Electrical Department. In 1973, he married an Anglo-Indian woman and they had two children, a girl named Candy and a son named Leon. After marriage, they rented a house in the railway quarters opposite the Durand Institute (the importance of this socio-cultural site for ‘Anglo-Indians’ of Asansol will be discussed later), which was the central meeting place for local ‘Anglo-Indians’, especially for those who had family members working in the railway. By this time, he had already formed a few bands. A guitar gifted to him at the age of fifteen, by his own admission, became ‘the most inspiring thing’ of his life which later did let him become a country music singer. While in school one very popular band formed by him was The Hailstones. Later he formed two other famous bands called The Rock Revival and The Trip. They played for ‘Anglo-Indian’ dances in Asansol and the neighbouring Eastern Railway colonies of Adra, Kharagpur, Chakaradharpur, Jamshedpur and even Calcutta. Morris moved to UK, explaining that that he had relatives there and was searching for ‘better opportunities in life’, and there he stayed from 1982 to 1986. There he was part of various leading bands. Terry Morris later (1987) moved to Sydney, Australia (where his relatives were already there and were excelling in the pursuit of their careers), in ‘search of greener pastures’, and this also proved to be a determining factor in his music career. In the interview he explained: ‘My ex-wife had a sister here in Australia which prompted us to move here. Looking back it was a very good decision as Australia is a beautiful country, very accepting of foreigners and best of all the weather is just like home in India’. In Australia, Morris (who was an ‘Anglo-Indian’ immigrant of the ‘reunion phase’) enhanced his skills in singing to become one of the celebrated

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‘country music’ singers of Australia. In one of his songs3 called Australia he most eloquently passes an encomium on this new home of his: ‘I came here from a distant land many years ago/Searching for middle way of life/ And as I set my feet down on shining golden sand/I knew that what I done was right’. Since then, Morris has written, composed, sung and performed across the globe. The famous Australian online music community—‘Reverbnation’—documents the following about the singer Terry Morris: ‘His crisp, pared-down lyrics, which often intensely portray a woman or her love, are in the mode of vintage Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins and Merle Haggard. His lilting harmonies are a perfect homage to the form of American country music’. It further continues: ‘Terry takes his music seriously and wants to be remembered as the driving force behind the propagation of country songs in the world’ (‘Terry Morris: Reverbnation’ 2017, n.pg.). A further detailing about Morris would help us better understand this microhistoric case study of mine. Morris’ paternal grandfather was an Indian Christian, Nav Ratan Misra, a Hindu who later converted to become a Christian, who married an ‘Anglo-Indian’ girl called Minnie from Asansol. From his maternal side his great grandfather was an Irishman, Albert Kernaghan, who married an ‘Anglo-Indian’ girl Kathleen Brown from Asansol. When I asked him in the interview why he uses Terry Morris instead of Terry Misra, he uninhibitedly replied: ‘My middle name is Morris and when I toured India and Dubai in 2010 and 2011 my manager advised me to use my middle name instead of my Indian surname. I was presented as a ‘country music’ artist from Australia singing all English songs, and thus I have continued with it since’. This candid admission by Morris brings us to the issues pertaining to ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity and the community’s negotiating, almost camouflaging, ability to ‘fit in’ within the ‘fantasies of White supremacies in a multicultural (Australian) society’ (Ghassan Hage 1998). Hage in White Nation is of the view that Australian multiculturalism is a façade beneath which lies the racist desire to build one single homogeneous white nation. This white culture and control expects the migrants to assimilate into the national imagination.

3  All the songs of Terry Morris (‘I’m Anglo Indian’, ‘We were the Railway Children’, ‘The Railway Quarters’, ‘The Streets of Asansol’, ‘Australia’, ‘Pepperwater Jive’, ‘I am going Home Anglo Indian Style’, ‘Anglo Indians Forever’, ‘An Anglo Indian Christmas’ ‘Fred the Indian Bushman’) are available at https://www.reverbnation.com/terrymisra/songs.

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The ‘Anglo-Indian’ migrants with their Europhile propensities were thus the perfect subjects for white Australian nation.

Songs of Terry Morris: Constructing and Deconstructing Identity and History In his interview Terry Morris admitted that he never had much to boast about the ‘Indianness’ of his origin. During the interview, in a reply to my question, ‘How much of Terry is still a part of India?’, Terry Morris said: ‘By birth right I am truly Indian but because of my father’s and my upbringing in the Anglo-Indian way, from speaking, mannerism, eating habits, music, dancing, mingling etc., I have always been accepted as more of an Anglo-Indian than Indian. It seems the Irish genes are stronger in me and my siblings as you may have observed from the photographs’.4 The pictures shared by Morris shows him and many of his cousins to be fair-skinned. The picture of Morris hosted by Reverbnation also projects him as a white ‘Aussie bloke’ in bushware. His attitude to distinguish himself as ‘Anglo-Indian’ from being just Indian, by virtue of habits and physiognomy, is an interesting take about the understanding of his own identity. It is this Europhile attitude that also helps him acculturate in Australia and supply to the desires of the white nation. Further, it is perhaps his sense of the superiority of his ‘white’ Irish genes, which make him promote his Irish lineage through Albert Kernaghan and not the ‘Indian’ through Nav Ratan Misra. His disavowal of his Indian lineage is particularly prominent in his song ‘I’m an Anglo Indian’: which include the lines: I’m Anglo Indian/My grandpa was an Irishman he came from Dublin town/My grandma came from Asansol a famous railway town/His name was Albert Kernaghan and hers was Kathleen Brown/Which makes me proud of who I am, I’m Anglo Indian.

The above song written during 1990s, for the band—Face 2 Face— formed with his son Leon at Sydney, at once asserts Morris’ identity as a migrant and is indicative of his desire and ability to merge with the ‘white’ Australia. Not only does he drop his surname, Misra, to appear more 4  In the interview of Terry Morris conducted by me, Morris gave me a few family photographs of him at Asansol (1970s) and Australia.

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white/Aussie/Anglo/less-Indian but also the use of the phrase ‘home across the sea’, in the same song, is also very dubious. The ‘home’ may apparently be India, but may as well be Ireland—both are located across the seas for a man now residing in Australia. If ‘home across the sea’ is Ireland then there seems to be no cultural loss of identity, a usual phenomenon with any migrant, which Terry Morris seems to regret. His highlighting of the Irish identity in his song makes him a more acceptable performer to the white Australian audience (read white Australian musical nation). In the same song, we find him discoursing the essential Europhile ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity: ‘I love to sing, I love to dance, I love my scotch and rum/I’m a Catholic I’m a protestant, I’m a faithful Christian/I’m a teacher I’m a railway man, I’m proud of who I am/So I will tell you once again, I’m Anglo Indian’ (‘I’m Anglo Indian’). Such proclivity towards song, dance, drinks and Christian faith distinctly marked the Anglophile aspects of the ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity of Morris. At the same time, these very customaries and observances could help him acculturate amidst the broader ‘white’ Australian community. Back in a place like Asansol, two essential professions chosen by ‘Anglo-­ Indians’ were the jobs of being a teacher in a Christian missionary school and working in the Railways (the same also mentioned by Morris in his song ‘I’m Anglo-Indian’). Missionary schools of Asansol such as St. Patrick’s Higher Secondary School, St Vincent’s High and Technical School and the Loreto Convent had many ‘Anglo-Indian’ members. Not only was Morris’ mother a teacher in one of the Jesuit schools near Asansol his father also worked in the Indian Railways of Asansol Division. The Durand Institute—the only Railway institute of Asansol and the first recreational institute of the entire Indian railway was the Anglophile cultural hub for ‘Anglo-Indians’. Set up in 1878 it was called ‘European Institute’ and in 1925 it was renamed the Durand Institute after Sir Mortimer Durand—the architect of the famous Durand line between Afghanistan, Tibet and India. According to the History/Heritage of Asansol Division, Eastern Railway: ‘This institute was very popular among the high officials of E.I.R., right from Calcutta to Saharanpur, and they craved to dance in the sophisticated dance hall during the Christmas festival. The entire floor was made of Burma Teak!’ It permitted admission only to Europeans and ‘Anglo-Indians’, and it was only after independence that Indians were granted entry to it (2012, n.pg.) Thus, to be ‘Anglo-Indian’ at Asansol was to be essentially a ‘Durandite’, living in the Railway colony, and in or near the missionary schools and

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working in one of those schools or the railways. Morris’ early history echoed of the broader ‘Anglo-Indian’ history of Asansol and he recapitulates the same in his songs such as ‘We were the Railway Children’ and ‘The Railway Quarters’. The ‘happy memories’ (‘The Railway Quarters’) of Morris are in effect nostalgias that had a strong sense of Anglophilia and western ‘modernity’ running in them. In these two songs that project the ‘Anglo-Indian’ life in a Railway township, Morris talks about the ‘modern’ taste of the Anglo-Indians. This modernity, as opposed to the traditional Indian culture, is consequently implicated with the imperial culture (Carton 2012, 3). ‘Anglo-Indian’ penchant for a modern western life, as recollected through various images used by Morris in his songs, bears testament to the same: ‘Institute’, playing ‘snooker’ and ‘badminton’, ‘dance parties’, ‘Christmas trees’, ‘Sports Day, Fancy Dress, the Talent Show’; and children being with the ‘ayah’ while parents partying and dancing throughout the night (‘We were the Railway Children’ and ‘The Railway Quarters’). In some of his other songs, Morris mentions the quintessential ‘Anglo-Indian’ foods such as ‘pepperwater’ and the community’s love for ‘jiving’ at parties and during Christmas time (e.g. in his ‘Pepperwater Jive’); and also cake making during Christmas (‘An Anglo-Indian Christmas’). He even nostalgically recollects a host of ‘Anglo-Indian’ people staying at Asansol: ‘Colleen’, ‘Aunty Barbara’, ‘Uncle Leslie’ and ‘Aunty Betty’ and a bunch of ‘Anglo-Indian’ boys in the song ‘Streets of Asansol’. What is unmistakable in these lyrics is that the ‘I’ of the micro-­ level singing persona transcends to become the all-pervasive ‘we’ ‘Anglo-­ Indians’—the macro identity: ‘I am you are we are my friends, we’re Anglo Indians’ (emphasis added); ‘We were the Railway children’; ‘Livin in the railway quarters were the best years of our lives’; ‘And bring back the good old days we knew’ (‘We were the Railway Children’ and ‘The Railway Quarters’). His songs, which express his life and views, add to the expansive structures of the historical narratives of ‘Anglo-Indian’ identity formed in India and re-conjured in Australia. Morris’ songs authentically furnish to the Anglophilia of the community while in India and the same identity markers that also helped the ‘Anglo-Indian’ community acculturate within the structures of ‘white’ modern Australia. Further, as we would see, Morris’ very choice of ‘country music’ genre may have provided a fillip to the discourse of the ‘white’ Australian nation formation. ‘Country music’ in Australia is a legacy of the Irish settlers of Australia (Smith 2011, 27–28). But, the Australian country music is not simply one that reflects Irish romanticism but it modifies the same to bring

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forth a prime nationalist ‘Australian legend’—the bushman’s life at the outback Australia (Ward 1958). In their book Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia (2004), Peter Dunbar-Hall and Chris Gibson project how non-Aboriginal Australian ‘country music’ helps to consolidate a colonial ‘white’ nation: ‘Narratives of ‘settlement’ and ‘progress’ have been central to Australian nationalism since the period of intense patriotism that preceded the federation of Australian states in 1901. These are reflected in Australian musical histories, including that of country music’ (Dunbar-Hall and Gibson 2004, 96–97). Dunbar-Hall and Gibson also remind us that the ‘rural mythologies’ of ‘bushmen’ that forms a leading theme of such country song consolidates the nationalist discourse based on mateship (ibid.). Morris’ choice of ‘country music’ since his Asansol days to establish himself as a singer is perhaps, as he says in the interview, due to his affection towards and affinity for his white Irish heritage. This same ‘country music’ not only had greater acceptance in Australia, that had a strong Irish music heritage, but also when sung in the Australian vein made the singer of such ‘country music’ quite an Australian ‘bloke’. Hence, ‘country music’ helped Morris obfuscate his migrant ‘Anglo-Indian’ traits and helped him acculturate in Australia. Hence, Terry Morris, an Australian ‘country music’ singer touring the world, promotes the ‘white’ Australian national discourse of a traditional bushman’s life (the ‘Aboriginal legend’ of Russell Ward). The same is also evident in the sartorial detailing of Morris during his performance. In all his performances Terry Morris is dressed up as a Bushman and in his interview he admits that this conscious sartorial identity negotiation is meant to create a verisimilitude effect keeping in mind the ‘country music’ genre to which his songs belong. The microhistoric narrative of Morris so far proves the point that his is a mimetic representation of the grand ‘Anglo-Indian’ narrative, whether back in India as pro-­ European or in Australia as a migrant, whose subjects are all desirous to ‘fit in’ to the modern Anglophile ‘white’ nation. But microhistory is not merely about representation but also about subversion. A subversive and appropriative tendency that runs counter to the hegemonic, homogenous ‘white’ nationalist Australian discourse (to which ‘Anglo-Indians’ are definite suppliers) is also evident in Morris’ songs. Such disruptive aporias (as later discussed in his evoking of the concept of ‘home’) in Morris’ songs takes his microhistory beyond a ‘synecdochical’ (Szijártó and Magnússon 2013) echoing to a component that has the potency to disrupt the general acceptable narratives of

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‘Anglo-Indians’ effortlessly integrating within the ‘white’ Australian nation. A host of structural lacunas in the songs of Morris turn these aesthetic musical sites from being genuine mimetic, microcosmic representation to aporiatic sites of hybridity, appropriation and subversion. The very use of ‘Anglo-Indian English’ in the songs of Morris destabilizes the Australian ‘white’ nation’s linguistic hegemony that otherwise tries to subsume within its gamut ‘Anglo-Indian’ migrants, too. To use terms from Ashcroft et  al. (1989), the monoculture of standard Australian English has been exposed by an ‘Anglo-Indian’ to a double movement of ‘abrogation’ and ‘appropriation’ (Ashcroft et  al. 1989, 38–77). Morris’ texts ‘abrogates’ the standard white Australian English by rejecting its hegemony and centrality through the ‘appropriation’ of the same by instilling in it the commonplace and daily linguistic register of Anglo-­ Indian populace. Thus, ‘Anglo-Indian’ English engages in a cultural resistance to destabilize the single language state; or to put it otherwise it destabilizes Bakhtinian ‘impermeable monoglossia’ (Bakhtin 1981, 61). An ‘impermeable monoglossia’ results in limiting a language within its own narrow confines of linguistic articulation and thereby disallowing any meaningful dialogic articulation with the real multilingual world. Standard Australian English—a deterministic tool of cultural expression for the nation-state (to which the migrant ‘Anglo-Indians’ were expected to be an intrinsic part) is called for an interrogation by Morris in his songs. Morris’ songs are more of a dialogic development that further resulted in appropriation of the standard Australian English by various literary and linguistic strategization. The songs provide subversive and strategic linguistic devices to unsettle the Australian English by installing the ‘metonymic gap’ of difference, which according to Ashcroft: ‘[…] is that cultural gap formed when appropriations of a colonial language insert unglossed words, phrases or passages from a first language, or concepts, allusions or references which may be unknown to the reader’. (Ashcroft 2001, 75) These cultural gaps surface through use of words, phrases and concepts such as: ‘Oudh’ (an obsolete colonial English word for an once princely state of Northern India), ‘Pa went on line’ (father gone away to work at the railways), ‘Paan, Bidi,’ (‘paan’ is a Hindi word for a beetle leaf preparation that is used as a digestive and mouth freshener across India; ‘bidi’ is a Hindi word for local, unrefined mini-cigars wrapped in leaves) (‘The Railway Quarters’). From the same song he also uses peculiar ‘Anglo-­ Indian’ phrases like: ‘Garam, garam Caapee’ (hot coffee), ‘Aare Baba have some stick jaw toffee’, (‘Aare Baba’ could be best explained as ‘oh! Come

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on!’) ‘Lonavla Chickee’ (peanuts and jaggery sweets made in Lonavla region of Maharashtra, India) (‘The Railway Quarters’). From another song, about Asansol and ‘Anglo-Indian’ life there, he uses words and phrases like: ‘Institute’, ‘ayah’ (‘We were the Railway Children’), ‘puchka walla, ice-cream walla’ (‘puchka’ is a peculiar street food of Bengal; and ‘puchka walla refers to a puchka seller), ‘number 49’, ‘number 69’ (these are quarter numbers in the railway colony of Asansol) and eventually, the concept of Asansol as a famous ‘Railway town’ (‘The Railway Quarters’). If such subversion of a standardized language and culture (here Australian English) was not enough, then Morris even probes the sense of home to renegotiate his identity. In the song ‘The Streets of Asansol’ Morris—who elsewhere subterfuges his ‘home’ amidst nostalgic croonings of Irish heritage (‘I’m Anglo Indian’), and even accepts his new home to be Australia (‘Australia’)—most non-obliquely states his home to be located at Asansol. Elsewhere Morris’ engagement/negotiations with the sense of home—a signifier for his identity—is cautious, obligatory and politicized, but in ‘The Streets of Asansol’ he makes a candid submission pertaining to his concept of home. In this song he interrogates the contested transnationality regarding the sense of home which in the otherwise standard/macro historical-cultural narratives of ‘Anglo-Indian’ migrants in Australia remains unquestionable. At the very beginning of the song he unambiguously asserts: ‘There was a place in my heart and forever will be/ The place I will always call home/Someday I will go back to where my heart belongs/And walk down the streets of Asansol’ (emphasis added). In his other song ‘I’m going Home Anglo Indian Style’, Morris indirectly critiques his hitherto unquestionably correct choice of Australia as a new found home (‘Australia’). In this song Morris projects Australia as a racist country when he says that he is going to the ‘Anglo-Indian’ reunion in Calcutta, a place where there is ‘no distinction between black and white’. The final incredulity to the ‘white’ Australian nation’s homogeneity is to be had through Morris’ song ‘Fred the Indian Bushman’.5 Such subversion becomes important in understanding Morris, the man and the artist, as a microhistoric case study whereby a hybridity is generated that critiqu es/‘narrates’/‘performs’ (Bhabha 1994) the structuralist discourse of a white nation and its history and identity.

5  A YouTube version of ‘Fred the Indian Bushman’ is available at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Q5QEDMr-XP0.

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In the music video, ‘Fred the Indian Bushman’ (Morris 2008), Morris brings mimicry to a full circle. The song is about Frederick Tucker Deatker Jr., an ‘Anglo-Indian’ (with associations in Asansol and Shimla) who ruptures the quintessential bushman image of outback Australia by mimicking the same in the most Bhabhaesque manner. The legendary image of a bushman is the production of the Australian nation that is essentially male chauvinistic, white and Eurocentric. As a symbol of ‘nationalism’ (Ward 1958, 34), a bushman was supposed to be an ‘archetypal Australian’ (Elder 2007, 34)—a self-sufficient, strong, rugged hero living in an inhospitable place. A typical Aussie man, nay, bushman is, thus, according to Ward, a ‘practical’, ‘rough and ready’ man capable of ‘great exertion in an emergency’ and ‘swears hard and consistently, gambles heavily and often, and drinks deeply on occasion’ (Ward 1958, 16–17). Moreover, for Ward, a bushman is a ‘fiercely independent person’ who values mateship greatly (Ward 1958, 17). A proper reading of Ward’s estimation of a bushman image will further make one aware that the importance of a woman in the life of a bushman is ever overshadowed. According to Kay Schaffers, women in the bush fails to evoke any image beyond the stereotypical frustrating roles of ‘damned whores’ or ‘God’s police’ (Schaffers 1988, 31). The first being ‘identified with the Irish, the ex-convicts, the uncivilized’, the latter being ‘connected with England, the law, Christianity and ruling-­ class respectability’ (Schaffer 31). This very stereotype of a bushman—a cultural production of a ‘white’ national identity—is strategically, albeit unconsciously, mimicked by Morris’ representation of Fred—the Indian bushman. Fred, a hybrid entity, is in Bhabhaesque parlance ‘white but not quite’—as he is an Indian, rather ‘Anglo-Indian’, bushman. None of the intrinsic bushman images, as recounted by Ward, are brought to the fore by Morris’ projection of Fred in his song. In the music video, Fred is shown to be a part of the Bush; however, he is never projected as the macho man who braves the wild outback. The first visual portrayal of Fred (in the YouTube music video) is the projection of a man reclining under the gum tree among kangaroos, albeit it is said he does so after the day’s work: ‘Loves to lay his head down when the work and day is through/ beneath the shady gum tree among the kangaroos’. Yet, the only tough macho-work (as shown in the video) undertaken by him is skinning of a kangaroo (although this was not in the lyrics). Morris says that Fred travels and camps in far off places and leads a bushman life—that essentially comprises nothing more than drinking home-brewed alcohol and crooning a bushman song in his harmonica. But, other rugged features such as

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swearing and gambling (Ward, 16–17) have never been ascribed to the ‘Anglo-Indian’ bushman, Fred. Moreover, rather than on the integral mateship issues of a bushman, Morris focuses on Fred’s ‘darling wife’ being beside him and him being never alone. The importance of a wife undercuts the male chauvinistic image of a quintessential bushman, almost emasculating him. In addition, the portrayal of nature is not one that exudes the rugged hostile unaccommodating dare-worthy outback, but rather one that talks about shady gum trees, fresh clear air and cool flowing waters of the Obley River. The projection of this image of Fred by Morris is less of a rugged bushman and more of a romantic escapist—a macho Aussie bushman manqué who is tired of the city pent (Morris sings that even in the city Fred is dressed as a bushman). This failed attempt by Fred at authenticity ‘is the final irony of partial representation’ (Bhabha 1994, 88). Although this transformative strategy adopted by Fred is unconscious, it has political implications in subverting a homogenizing and standardizing tendency of a ‘white’ Australian nation that projects its male-Eurocentric-sexist image as an all-pervasive one. Hence, Fred—the ‘Anglo-Indian’ bushman—in his own way informs the microhistoric study of Terry Morris. Contrary to the standard notion that micro-level individual subjective elements are only echoes of the great historical narrative, the narrative around Fred undercuts the grand discourse. Fred’s narrative, read discerningly, subverts the standard acceptance that the migrant ‘Anglo-Indians’ of Australia acculturate within the ‘white’ national paradigm. Fred, much like Terry Morris (who during his own performance of ‘country music’ dresses up like an ‘Aussie bushman’), finally proves ‘Anglo-Indian’ discourse in Australia ‘to be almost the same but not white’ (Bhabha 1994, 89).

Conclusion In the chapter, I have shown through a microhistoric approach the two opposed strains of a single discourse orienting around ‘Anglo-Indian’ migrants’ cultural adjustment in ‘white’ Australia jostling together. One aspect of any microhistoric case study conforms to the structure of which it happens to be a micro element; while the other aspect of the same microhistoric case study constantly subverts the grand structure to which they belong. In the case of Terry Morris with his songs as a site for microhistoric analysis, it is quite discernible how his life and creative narratives expound the large narratives of ‘Anglo-Indian’ migration to Australia,

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whiteness accumulation and a consequent acculturation. The other aspect of Morris’ life and art reveal the potency of a subversion/narration of this dominant ‘Anglo-Indian’ migration narrative through an internally transformatory and ambivalent attitude unto the ‘white’ Australia(nness) or by unleashing a longing for India—Terry Morris’ desire to come back ‘to the home across the sea’ (‘I am an Anglo-Indian’). Finally, as discoursed in my chapter, through a microhistoric example, ‘Anglo-Indian’ migrant experiences and identity negotiations/politics witness a dual characteristic. On one hand, it is about the structural tendency of ‘Anglo-Indians’ to merge with white Australia’s homogenizing desires and the same is done through the invoking of the former’s Anglophilia. On the other hand, the dilemma, faced by the bi-racial migrant community members, regarding their sense of belongingness to the ‘home’ proper at a deeper psychological level problematizes the apparent stability of their identity category.

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Morris, T. (2008, November 29). Fred the Indian Bushman—Australian Country Music. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5QEDMr-­XP0. Renders, H., & Hann, B.  D.. (2014). Theoretical Discussions of Biography: Approaches from History, Microhistory and Life Writing (Leiden, Ed.). Boston: Brill. Schaffer, K. (1988). Women and the Bush. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, G. (2011). The Gendered Voice of Australian Country Music. Context, 35(/36), 27–38. Stewart, G.  R. (1959). Pickett’s Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack on Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Szijártó, I.  M., & Magnússon, S.  G. (2013). What is Microhistory: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge. ‘Terry Morris:Reverbnation.’ (2017). Retrieved from https://www.reverbnation. com/terrymisra. Tucker, H. (2011). Bloodwork: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton. Ward, R. (1958). The Australian Legend. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

PART IV

Gendered Identities

CHAPTER 11

The Personal Can Be Political: Deconstructing Representations of Anglo-Indians Dolores Chew

My work in Anglo-Indian Studies and the conclusions I have arrived at regarding gender representations of Anglo-Indians have been intertwined with a personal odyssey. My reading and analyses, pre-occupied as they have been with patriarchy, colonialism and nationalism, have been informed by the theoretical and methodological lenses of feminism, post-­ colonialism and subalternism. They have facilitated an appreciation of power and hegemony, the moulding of female sexuality to fit agendas— patriarchal, colonial and national—and the importance of identifying and acknowledging subversivity and agency, including my own.

I thank the editors for their valuable comments and suggestions that have brought clarity and coherence to the chapter. Final responsibility, however, remains mine. D. Chew (*) Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_11

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This chapter starts with my research trajectory in the course of which I came to recognize and validate the subjective and the objective in research. At the start of my journey I began to explore gender representations of Anglo Indians from the late nineteenth century through to just after Partition.1 However there seemed to be something missing from my analyses, a significant lacuna which I eventually came to recognize as nation and nationalism. The contents of this chapter present conclusions I have reached as a result of combining subjective reflections, critically evaluating gender representations of Anglo-Indians in texts and integrating nation and nationalism in my analyses. As well, the subjective and the objective are intertwined and my identity and positionality inform the work.

Beginnings Attempting to understand the genesis and perpetuation of grotesque representations of Anglo-Indians, as well as the hyper minoritization we, ‘Midnights’ Orphans’,2 experienced was something I only started with my post-doctoral work, after I’d got several degrees under my belt. In graduate studies I had focussed on the world of upper caste Hindu women in nineteenth century Bengal. At this time, even though the work was not on Anglo-Indians, I came to an important realization which became pivotal to my later work on gender representations of Anglo-Indians, especially of women, and that was the need to problematize female sexuality, within power structures of patriarchy in a context of colonialism (Chew 1994,  1988, 2002a, 2010). As time passed, developments and pre-­ occupations in the academy and in activism enriched my understanding of Anglo-Indian positionality and experience in colonial and post-colonial India. I began to more effectively connect dots that linked the analytic  Partition of India by the British in 1947 into India and Pakistan.  Midnights’ Orphans is a phrase that takes its inspiration from the title of Salman Rushdie’s 1981 book Midnight’s Children, which was derived from the famous ‘Tryst With Destiny’ speech by Jawaharlal Nehru delivered close to midnight on 14 August 1947: ‘At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom’. In Rushdie’s novel 1001 children are born at that time. They have special gifts. ‘Midnight’s Orphans’ has come to describe communities that may not have fared as well with independence, in this instance, Anglo-Indians. ‘Midnight’s Orphans’ has appeared as the title of Glenn D’Cruz’s book (D’Cruz 2006), and most recently as the title of the seminar and workshop on Anglo-Indian Studies at IIT Madras in August 2017, at which an earlier version of this chapter was presented. 1 2

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categories ‘gender’ and ‘nation’/‘nationalism’ and brought into relief how Anglo-Indians have been situated and represented historically as well as today. The last couple of decades has seen a burgeoning of Anglo-Indian Studies. Methodologically, as well, there is a rich and growing literature on hybridity, metissage and mixed race people (Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies 2014–; Hellwig 1993; Hellwig and Nagtegaal 1992; Kuortti and Nyman 2007; Lionnet 1991; Mahtani 2014; Prabhu 2007; Rocha and Fozdar 2017). What is noteworthy is how the experiences of mixed race populations, though situated in disparate geographical and temporal locations, resemble one another—internalized subordination and marginalization.3 An intersectional approach makes visible the links between knowledge production and marginalization, produced and re-produced by the ideology and hegemony of colonialism and racism. While all this is now very clear to me, when I began my research, there wasn’t much work in this area and I had to find my own way.

Internalized Colonization Coming to Anglo-Indian Studies brought me full circle to my roots. Growing up Anglo-Indian in post-colonial India I had a sense that who I was, was very different from pervasive, negative stereotypes. Like many marginalized people, I internalized these representations even as I paradoxically and subconsciously rejected them. Eventually I began to grapple with the dissonance between representations I encountered and my lived reality. However, in order to arrive at this place, I first needed to begin the process of emancipating myself from internalized colonialism and marginalization and the stranglehold of hegemonizing ideologies. My choice of earlier research subject—Hindu women in nineteenth-century Bengal— while within the domain of my general areas of interest—gender and South Asia—was a result of my sense of what were ‘serious’ and therefore ‘acceptable’ academic topics. And so, even though I was engaged in the subversivity of early feminist scholarship on colonial Bengal, along with the realizations that brought, I subconsciously felt, having absorbed this

3  Similar lived realities exist for other groups that are marginalized by power structures that deploy race and caste and to some extent class (often all three), to maintain status, power and privilege.

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by osmosis as I grew up, that the study of Anglo-Indians was non-serious, and I stayed clear. As Terry Eagleton brilliantly and incisively states: It is not enough for a woman or colonial subject to be defined as a lower form of life; they must be actively taught this definition, and some of them prove to be brilliant graduates in this process. It is astonishing how subtle, resourceful and quick-witted men and women can be in proving themselves to be uncivilized and thickheaded. … A dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable; denigrating ideas which might challenge it. (Eagleton 1991, xiv–xv; 5)

Simone de Beauvoir similarly described the phenomenon of self-­ Othering in The Second Sex (1974). She explained how women rarely showed solidarity with other women or identified with one another as objects of patriarchal oppression. Beauvoir observed how women project onto themselves the identity of Other, a consequence of the hegemonizing effect of patriarchy (Beauvoir 1974, xix–xxx). This can be extrapolated to understanding the internalization of marginalization by Anglo-Indians and other subordinated groups. I am now at a place where I can recognize this as the product of my marginality in a post-colonial nation. What began as lived experience, with twinges of unease at the stage-whispered ‘half-­ caste’ or the man who wanted to date you because he thought you would be an easy lay, got concretized for me as a girl and then as a young woman. It might have been through innuendo or popular cultural media, but the stereotypes were ubiquitous—highly sexualized identities of Anglo-Indian women and indigent, shiftless men who scrounged off them. Over time I developed a growing appreciation of the impact of ideology and hegemony.

Breaking Free I found liberating paradigms in feminist writing which were complemented by Saidian (Said 1979) and subaltern frameworks (Guha 1982; 1983a, b), and I gained a fuller appreciation of the role of power, hegemony and ideology in what I was researching. These developments also brought to the surface things about my identity that were buried in my subconscious. I came to understand how patriarchy constructs and maintains gender inequality; how it can morph and get instrumentalized in

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different contexts and realities, for example, colonial and racial; how within patriarchy, female sexuality becomes a focus of attention, of control, of moralizing and policing and gets utilized as marker and identifier and impacts status; how it creates unequal relationships of domination and subordination; how the private (female)/public (male) sphere divide results in constructions that police and manipulate gender to privilege patriarchy; how woman and nation get conflated. Saidian methodology, with its roots in making visible the power/knowledge nexus, helped me flesh out processes of Othering in a colonial context with the unequal power equations that are inherent to that system. It also amply explained the construction of the Other as timeless, essentialized, unchanging and backward, with gender constructions that say more about the colonizer than colonized and speak to the ubiquity of the caricatured representations of Anglo-Indians. Subaltern methodology further clarified power inequalities and the role of ideology and hegemony in creating and perpetuating them (Guha 1982, 1983a, b). It also showed me how to re-­ centre my subject, the subaltern. In addition, it contributed to my appreciation of subversion and resistance in its many manifestations. These paradigms provided the tools to unravel the constructed identities I was grappling with. What they revealed helped me overcome my unconscious reluctance to engage academically with Anglo-Indian topics, which, as a hegemonized subject, I had stayed away from. And for my post-doctoral research, I plunged right in to examine gender constructions of Anglo-­ Indians in works of fiction, in the late colonial and post-colonial period. Mostly I looked at works written originally in English with the exception of some translated from Urdu.

Literary Representations My research into representations of Anglo-Indians, especially Anglo-­ Indian women (in part because there are fewer of Anglo-Indian men) yielded a bountiful catch. Works of fiction and non-fiction penned during the Raj and in the post-colonial period are replete with racist and sexist caricatures. There is the stereotype of the Anglo-Indian woman displaying a perverted agency as a conniving creature, governed by her sexuality, or the converse, the Anglo-Indian woman as victim: an object of pity. Or the Anglo-Indian women and girls whose sole purpose, it would seem, was to provide sexual experiences for uninitiated young men, as in the colonial nostalgia text Plain Tales from the Raj (Allen 1975) where we read ‘The

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girls that you couldn’t be seen with in the cold weather, the Eurasians and the “poor whites” who were absolutely riddled with sex and very beautiful were comparatively fair game. You hadn’t got to marry them and they courted you’ (Allen 1975, 124). Or in the politically charged Emergency4 era novel Rich Like Us (Sahgal 1985) where a father nostalgically recalls: ‘We had the little Anglo-Indian girls from the railway colony, to do our growing up with. … Little beauties some of them were. Young men now have a real problem. A man has to get his experience somewhere’ (Sahgal 1985, 162). In the novel Raj (Mehta 1989), you can almost hear a slow cabaret number grind out as author Gita Mehta creates a stealthy, seductive entrance for the canny, calculating ‘other woman’: Jaya’s skin burned with anger when she saw the gentlemen craning around their companions to watch the long-legged girl [Esme Moore] dressed in a clinging pink silk shift that seemed to add a glow to her slightly dusky complexion, move through the crowded room. A hat covered her tight black curls, dropping a veil over her wide eyes, allowing her to appear demure even as she acknowledged the men rising to greet her from every table. (Mehta 1989, 245)

And in the classic Bhowani Junction, John Masters concocts for Victoria Jones a moment of inexplicable, spontaneous realization about a primordial morally blemished female ancestry and by so doing reinscribes the colonial narrative of European bloodlines tainted by Indian whores: In that moment I had gone back to where we came from which was the Indian loose women of a hundred years ago … I heard the words pouring out of my mouth, out of my heart—a flood of Hindustanee and our cheechee English, thick with language that I have tried all my life to believe I never knew. (Masters 1954, 78–79)

Non-fiction works like the illustrated travelogue Walls of India (Woodcock and Onley 1985) by George Woodcock are no different. ‘The hotel [in Cochin, Kerala] was a new concrete building, already soiled and 4  In June 1975 the president of India at the behest of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, declared a state of national emergency, something provided for in article 352 of the Indian constitution. As a result there was government by decree, civil liberties were revoked, there was press censorship, mass imprisonment of people deemed political opponents and forced sterilization.

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unkempt. … Down in the lobby an Australian … was arguing with an Anglo-Indian tart…’ (Woodcock and Onley 1985, 61). While we might indulge the author for using ethnic and national identifiers in order to be more informative for his readers, we can also call out Woodcock the anarchist, who should know better, for falling afoul of the patriarchal, colonial, racist trope, putting the adjective ‘Anglo-Indian’ before ‘tart’, placing her in a physical space of shabby tawdriness and decay, meanwhile subliminally conveying his distaste of the scenario and all who are in it. In another non-­ fiction work, the Australian journalist Wilfrid Burchett, a communist, critically conveys a lesson in racial etiquette he’d been subjected to in 1940s war-time Calcutta, which he’d reached after trekking from Burma. Quite innocently, I’d committed the only really unforgivable sin in an Indo-­ European city. Cheating, forging, raping, whoring, perjury, deserting from the Army, any of these sins could be readily forgiven a man by the Mem Sahibs, but ‘flaunting a half-breed’ in their faces, sets a man beyond the pale. (Burchett 1942, 274)

References to Anglo-Indian men are fewer, but also usually negative. In The Eurasians a young Englishman takes it on himself to warn a young Englishwoman about some Anglo-Indian guards on a train they were travelling on, by heaping stock racist slurs and calumny on them, because he senses she might find them attractive. He called them niggers, liars, devils and finally questioned whether they were actually human. While this rant is informed by jealousy mixed with vestiges of protection and control, it displays a perspective informed by vulgarized evolutionary theory of the nineteenth century where the ‘Eurasian’ would be lower on the evolutionary rung; not quite human! When the woman said he was perhaps being too hard on them, he responded, ‘Because they’m not men, I tell you!’ (Bruce 1913, 78). And there you have it. Jealous masculinity and social Darwinism all wrapped into one. In That Man From Madura, an Anglo-­ Indian man seeks to marry a European woman as an escape route out of India, ‘an opportunity to restore his blood to its parent stream’ (Gillespie 1952, 73). He comes across variously as contemptible or pathetic. But he exemplifies the kind of colonized subject that Eagleton writes about, someone who has been hegemonized and who sees redemption in denying his origins and re-inventing himself by marriage to a white woman. In A Suitable Boy the Anglo-Indian characters are predictable. There’s Jason, who lost his job with the Calcutta police because he’d slept with a

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Sub-Inspector’s wife, spent his time drinking Shamshu5 and going to the races. And Paul who’s unemployed and pimps for his sister whenever her boyfriend who’s a purser on a ship is out of town (Seth 1993, 436–7). Somewhat balancing out this image of the Anglo-Indian loser, is that the author, Vikram Seth is quite catholic in his allocation of vice with two other ne’er do wells, who are not Anglo-Indian, who hang out with Jason: Varun and Sajid. While in Burchett’s non-fiction narrative, his disapproval of the memsahib bias is evident, it’s still an issue for a reader who may be unfamiliar with the nuances of racial politics, and for whom then, this introduces a stereotype. And if said reader is not critical, the stereotype becomes normative. On the other hand, for a reader who may already be only too familiar with such stereotypes, having them served up repeatedly just reinforces them. In both instances, the result is that the stereotype endures. While we can argue that there is a place for literary authenticity, that is, there are indigent Anglo-Indian men (the Jasons and Pauls), just as there are Hindu and Muslim ones (the Varuns and the Sajids), the entire communities of the latter two do not get stereotyped6 in the same way, as a consequence of what appears on the page. They are viewed as maladjusted, exceptions to the rule. On the other hand, the Anglo-Indian male characters serve to re-affirm the rule. With Salman Rushdie, especially with Midnight’s Children, there are ‘Anglos’ and ‘Coca-Cola girls’, but in true Rushdian fashion he’s hard to pin down and it’s not clear whether he’s deliberately mischievous or unknowingly commits the faux pas of taxonomic elision of Anglo-Indian-­ Goan-mixed race. The blurring of identities and cultural hybridity without specificities that’s there in Midnight’s Children (Mijares 2003) could be read simply as literary licence taken by a storyteller intent on providing a rollickingly good tale. But even if we give Rushdie this benefit of doubt, his treatment of mixed race individuals exemplifies in many respects what our discussion is all about. That he luxuriates in his cosmopolitanism but yet reinscribes these conventions is telling. The sampling above demonstrates the persistence of the stereotypical portrayals whether the writing happened during the colonial period of the  Shamshu = ‘cheap but effective Chinese spirits’ (Seth 1993, 382).  Regarding Sajid, in the period in which this novel was set, and even when it was published this could be so. But for a reader who picks up this book for the first time today, in the context of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, perhaps it will be less so. 5 6

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Raj or post-1947 and whether it came from a salacious pot-boiler or from a work of trenchant political critique. I concluded that this was because they were so embedded, that all and sundry—at times unwittingly—contributed to the ubiquity of these stereotypes. And as a result, gender and racial stereotypes became an integral ingredient, deployed to add sizzle, augment plot, characterization and even local colour (Chew 2002a, 2010). They are normative, they become conventions and their mimicry may be subconscious or deliberate attempts to confer authenticity, by those who have little to no knowledge of the community, its history or experience, let alone lived experience, and who then draw on what’s been written before. It’s the kind of deployment of imagination that Said writes about in Orientalism. An established work informs the creative imagination of subsequent writers who mimic it (Said, 23). Or one could be harsher and say that the mimicry is a lazy out by authors creating characters who are often marginal anyway and thus not worthy of investigation to truly flesh them out. Consequently it becomes difficult for the nuance and embedded critique of power, corruption, racism and marginalization in texts such as Burchetts’s (Trek Back From Burma) and Sahgal’s (Rich Like Us) to dislodge pre-existing stereotypes. If anything, they re-affirm them, for whether encountering a stereotype from the pen of an uncritical writer or one who repeats it by way of challenging it, the impact is the same for audiences who may be ignorant of the stereotypes or already subscribe to them. The constructions that combine the real and imagined become binaries intertwined in a perpetual dialogic.

Marginalisation as Colonial Policy The quest to uncover and question the genesis of such gender characterizations of Anglo-Indians made me aware of the huge role that colonial policies and economic deprivation played in this. Literary characterizations of Anglo-Indians emerged against a history of circumscribed employment, poverty, rejection and marginalization (Abel 1988; Charlton-Stevens 2018; Hawes 1996). The fortunes of the mixed race community from fairly early on were dependent on the somewhat whimsical and often opportunistic embrace or rejection by colonial authorities.7 Anglo-Indians 7  See, for example, Uther Charlton-Stevens’ Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism (Routledge, 2018), where he argues that: ‘the “problems” of those of mixed race lie not in the mixed themselves, but in

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came into existence as a result of the colonial encounter. Early on they found some patronage employment within the East India Company, but heightened racialisation became an important governing tool as the colonial venture expanded. On the other hand, we also see, rising in tandem, emerging consciousness of an East Indian8 identity among the community and awareness of the role of the colonizer in creating and perpetuating marginalization. This is made evident with great clarity early on in the East Indian petition to Parliament in London in 1829 which states that the colonial encounter manufactured a self-fulfilling argument; the colonial authorities created the racialized and prejudiced distinction between East Indians and Europeans and then used it to exclude the former from Company service (Parliamentary Papers 1830). As the mixed race community developed and evolved in colonial India, Anglo-Indian identification with Western norms resulted in marked differences with the majority communities. In areas of gendered normativity such as segregated living and social spaces, private sphere for women and public for men, Anglo-Indians violated taboos observed by majority communities, especially the elites amongst them (in terms of caste and class) in social mixing and interaction. So by the late nineteenth century, when Anglo-Indian women ventured out of their homes to work, this stepping from the private into the public sphere was fraught (Chew 2010, 191–2). However one needs to also note class and caste differences. With groups where the contribution of all family members is necessary for survival and subsistence, practising spatial gender segregation may be of less consequence. However, even here, those who aspired to upward mobility with attendant status implications would, when opportunity presented itself, impose restrictions on the movement of women of the family or community, from private to public spheres. Conversely, in families whose fortunes had fallen and the income-generating work of the women was crucial, such labour might be kept hidden from the public gaze, to preserve family status and reputation. Mainstream attitudes to Anglo-Indian women working outside the home need to be seen in this context (Chew 1996, 10). the social boundaries and attitudes to which they are subjected and expected to conform’ (p. 8). 8  East Indian was a term used by some sections of the European and Indian mixed race community during the nineteenth century, especially earlier on in the century. In this article Anglo-Indian I used almost throughout with the occasional nod to temporal or local usage such as ‘East Indian’.

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From the earliest, teaching has been an area of work for Anglo-Indian women, and when nursing became a viable profession, for a long time, Anglo-Indians were almost exclusively the only professional nurses in India. However this would have not been without negative status implications because of majoritarian cultural norms including notions of ritual pollution. Women ministering in intimate contexts to men who were not family members would place nurses beyond the pale of respectability. And India was not unique in this. In Britain and elsewhere, nursing was seen as one step removed from prostitution, with all the constructs of non-­ respectability that entailed (Holton 1984). Later, when more opportunities opened up in areas of work gendered female, Anglo-Indian women, since they were already working outside the home, were an obvious choice for employers seeking staff fluent in English, the Anglo-Indian mother tongue. Anglo-Indian women were hired as telephone operators, clerks, secretaries and salesgirls (Chew 2010, 191; Charlton-Stevens 2016). They became even more visible in the public sphere. However, Anglo-Indian women were not the only ones who breached gendered barriers. From the late nineteenth century, there is evidence in India of a few European women and Indian women from elite families who also worked outside the home, as teachers and physicians (Forbes 1996).9 Though mainstream society may not have been very approving of their career choices, women of these communities did not get sexually objectified as a result. Whereas with Anglo-Indians, the community as a whole was seen to violate norms and break taboos of spatial gender segregation. While I have been using ‘Anglo-Indians’, it must be noted that they are not a homogeneous group. There are differences based on class, income and geographic location. Upper class Anglo-Indians and sections of the Indian elite shared attitudes about the control of female sexuality and double standards of sexual morality for men. However, there were different norms of gendered behaviour among subaltern classes, both Anglo-­ Indian and Indian. There was less policing of sexuality and fewer constraints with regard to sexual relations. And the same for white subalterns. In fact, 9  The Englishwoman Annette Akroyd Beveridge set up the Hindu Mahila Bidyalaya in Calcutta. Kadambini Ganguly, who came from a Brahmo family was the first woman to graduate from Calcutta University as well as Calcutta Medical College and to practice medicine. She, along with Chandramukhi Basu who was from a Christian family, were the first female graduates in the British Empire (Forbes 1996, 122). Haimabati Sen who had been a child widow circumvented many boundaries and became a physician (Sen 2000).

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colonial authorities clubbed ‘poor whites’ and Eurasians10 together. ‘Poor whites’ were embarrassing reminders that colonial privilege was not a birthright of race; that whiteness did not confer legitimacy to govern and that, horrifyingly, in their straitened circumstances ‘poor whites’ often went ‘native’ (De 2008; Fischer-Tiné 2009).

Representations That Buck the Trend In contrast to the conventional representations in literature, we do find some writers who deviated from the norm, such as the Canadian, Sara Jeannette Duncan, author of the bio-fictional The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib, published in 1893. In Simple Adventures Duncan wrote how Eurasians were shunned on board ship on the voyage to India. From the observations of the character Helen, who is going to India from Britain for the first time, we learn of racist attitudes. Miss Stitch, an English missionary, feels it is her duty to instruct Helen in the ways of empire when she explains that she socially excluded fellow passenger, Mrs. De Cruz ‘of rather dark complexion’ and her daughters because they were of mixed race. ‘About four annas in the rupee’ was the disparaging expression Miss Stitch used and enigmatically added that Helen would soon find out what that ‘meant before she had long been in India’. Miss Stitch made plain she was only interested in converting ‘ladies who were “pure native”’ (Duncan 1893, 31–32).11 In Simple Adventures, Helen, the colonial neophyte, as yet unencumbered by the racial mores of colonial society, feels partisan towards the mixed race De Cruzes. Through Helen, we become aware of Duncan’s critique of what was common practice in the Raj. And her dissonant view stemmed very likely from the fact that she was an outsider in the race politics of the British Raj. As well, a Canadian and so from a colony herself, her whiteness may not have been an automatic conferral of equal standing with English people in Raj society, and she would have felt the sting of colonial hierarchy. In addition we know that even before she went to India she supported partnership for the Canada-Britain relationship instead of  Eurasian was another term that was used for a mixed race person.  16 annas making up a rupee, 4 annas implied one-quarter. The saying was a euphemism for a ‘Eurasian quadroon’, quadroon being the highly problematic racialized classification of a person who was ‘one-quarter black by descent’ (Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 1937; Oxford Dictionaries). 10 11

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colony. ‘Our enforced political humility is the distinguishing characteristic of every phase of our national life’ (Dean n.d., n.p.). And from other work we know that she also supported self-government for India (Huenemann 1993, 111). It would appear that for Duncan her personal experiences and political views influenced her. Urdu writers Saadat Hasan Manto (1989) and Ismat Chughtai (Chughtai 1995) rebel against the status quo also bucked the trend. Manto was a member of the nationalist and left-wing pre-Partition Progressive Writers’ Movement, who was concerned with hypocrisy and double standards in matters of gender, class and community. So it is unsurprising that in his work he violated taboos. Even as he denigrated elites, he valorised the exploited and marginalized for their honesty and guilelessness. Among the minorities he wrote about in this vein were Anglo-Indians (Chew 2010, 193). Chughtai, also a member of the Progressive Writer’s Association, was a feminist, who came from an upper-class Muslim family. In her autobiographical novel The Crooked Line (Chughtai 1995), the main protagonist, Shaman (modelled on Chughtai), meets Alma, a young Anglo-Indian girl in college. Alma enjoyed autonomy and anticipated future opportunities that Shaman herself dearly desired. Interestingly, while in common with other novels the Anglo-Indian character Alma is not central, this is where any similarity ends. The Crooked Line demonstrates that a text doesn’t have to have an Anglo-Indian as the main protagonist in order to provide a character that is multidimensional and not a caricature. The positionality and sensibilities of the author make the difference. A minor character can play a pivotal role in a story line. Chughtai’s feminism and her own desire to break free from the constraints imposed on upper-class women of her community and generation makes very comprehensible why she deviated from the norm when it came to representations of Anglo-Indian women. She did not see Anglo-Indians as other majoritarian-identified writers did. Chughtai wrote of Alma and her freedom to move from private to public sphere, as something to aspire to, not denigrate. The life possibilities open to Anglo-Indian women were what Chughtai yearned for, for herself and for other women of her community and class. These aspirations were that a woman should not be defined by gender and sexuality and should not have to bear the burden of the respectability of her family or community; she should control her own destiny. Chughtai was radical and went to the root, patriarchy. Women have been colonized by patriarchy to the extent of becoming complicit in their own subordination. Chughtai’s positionality, her understanding of

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the complexity of gender and her rejection of the constraints on women, made her oblivious to, or caused her to ignore or reject, the ubiquitous negative characterization of Anglo-Indian women. In making sense of these non-prescriptive narratives that were very different from the norm, I situate Duncan, Manto and Chughtai as Outsiders within their communities—white Canadian colonial in the world of the Raj; socio-cultural and gender iconoclastic upper-class Muslims—and therefore with the talent to identify with other Others. Duncan had a liminal life as a white woman from the colony of Canada in India of the Raj and to boot her support of a more egalitarian partnership for Canada with Britain.12 Manto’s and Chughtai’s objectives were to challenge and disrupt the complacency and smugness of their communities and class and to reveal the brittleness and hypocrisy inherent in maintaining a veneer of respectability. Their points of departure were already outside existing parameters. Chughtai in addition articulated gender rebellion. In Alma, Chughtai presents the Anglo-Indian woman not as lascivious or sexually available, but as an individual exerting agency who would not be dictated to by mores of class, caste or ethnicity. Forcefully illustrating the importance of subject position is the work of Anglo-Indian writer I.  Allan Sealy, The Trotter-Nama, a work of fiction anchored in historicity. Without apology, warts and all, Sealy (1990) writes about the community. The gender depictions are realistic. But most important is that the nama centres Anglo Indians.  As I have written elsewhere,  [Sealy] produces an irreverent saga of a family, the Trotters, that despite its seeming disingenuousness, is bereft of the gender and racialist stereotyping so characteristic of the above examples. … Anglo Indians are not part of the backdrop, they are not on the sidelines providing local colour. … The book is filled with Anglo Indian colloquialisms. … Sealy has chosen to write from within the community. … He does not distance himself. … perhaps for the first time in fiction writing that deals with Anglo Indians, the Us and Them is reversed. Anglo Indians are ‘Us’ and all others are ‘Them’. (Chew 2002a, 15–17)

It is re-assuring to know that since I began my work over two and a half decades ago, at a time when critiques such as mine were scant, other 12  While it would have been interesting, it has been difficult to discover what Duncan’s views, if any were on Indigenous Canadians and the process of settler colonialism in Canada.

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writers and scholars have also been exploring characterizations of Anglo-­ Indians in literature, in English and other South Asian languages, Glenn D’Cruz being the most notable to date (D’Cruz).13 There is also a growing body of work on filmic representations (Cassity 2010; Chatterji 2007; Mookerjea-Leonard 2017).

Factoring in Nation and Nationalism The manner in which gender constructions and representations played into identity and marginalization had dominated my investigations, until I had a ‘eureka’ moment when it dawned on me that integrating nation and nationalism into my analyses would really make a difference. Even though I was acutely aware of how in representations and popular imagination there existed muted or garish assumptions that Anglo-Indians were not part of the nation or saw themselves as foreign, I had not thought of actively factoring ‘nation’ into the discussion. It happened that in another context I had been researching and teaching nationalism—its rise, construction, the manner in which the ideology played out, and how it created insider and outsider groups, but it remained largely siloed off from my work on Anglo-Indians. At least until this epiphanic moment, when I came to realize that for a fuller appreciation and understanding of the ubiquitous stereotypical representations of Anglo-Indians, it was not enough to only factor in colonialism and patriarchy. I began to appreciate how Anglo-Indians’ identification, or lack thereof, with nationalism, or the way the construct ‘nation’, has usually been framed and understood in India and South Asia, precludes or excludes Anglo-Indians (as well as many Others). I needed to explore both the ambiguous and tendentious relationship of Anglo-Indians to the nation as well as see how construction of the nation and nationalism had an impact on Anglo-Indians. I approached ‘nation’ as imagined communities built around select identifiers such as ethnicity, language, religion, geographical space or shared (and possibly invented) common history. The analytic thread that I was following is reflected in the section below. To unpackage nation and nationalism with a view to understanding how they have contributed to issues of Anglo-Indian identity and representation, I looked at four individuals from the Indian sub-continent, all 13  The International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies is a valuable repository of some of this work.

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male, three of them Anglo-Indian, who lived through various periods or catalytic moments in history. In chronological order they are Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, Rabindranath Tagore, Frank Anthony and Cyril Stracey. The Anglo-Indians identified in various ways with ‘nation’, while the nonAnglo-Indian, Tagore, is included because of his incisive observations and writings that called out circumscribed nationalism for the divisiveness and havoc it wreaked and which he witnessed. There is a fifth in this grouping, not a person, but an event—Partition.14 With Derozio and Tagore I examine the implications of framing nation/nationalism within empire, while with Stracey and Anthony I look at Anglo-Indians’ identification with nation and nationalism. Partition and the creation of India and Pakistan can be examined in part as the consequence of nationalist ideology, even as it symbolized for many a rupture with and a rejection of nation/nationalism. It may seem curious to the reader that after a heavily gendered section above, there are no female interlocutors here. This to some extent reflects the reality that discourse on nationalism would be part of the public sphere15 and gendered male, even as, ironically, discussions of nation are often fecund with gendered tropes, something I allude to further below. Moreover even as Anglo-Indian women were trailblazers with respect to stepping out of the private sphere (in comparison to women from majoritarian communities), the community remained patriarchal.16 Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831), poet, teacher and intellectual, who celebrated country and community, is remarkable for the manner in which, as an Anglo-Indian, he did not suffer marginalization during his lifetime and even today. Of Portuguese descent on his father’s side and English from his mother’s, he could have opted for the identity ‘country-­ born’, which would have awarded him a higher position in the colonial hierarchy than that of ‘mixed race’, but he never did. He died very young but despite that left his mark. His name is inextricably linked to the period often referred to as the ‘Bengal renaissance’, and he is credited with 14  I should also state that Manto who I write about above with respect to gender representations also had a lot to say about nationalism, something he rejected in its entirety. 15  ‘Public sphere’ is used her as a counterpoint to ‘private sphere’ which have realms of activity that has been historically gendered female in most patriarchal situations. 16  In post-colonial India Anglo-Indian women have entered the political realm. There are past and incumbent women members of state assemblies and the Lok Sabha. I am also hopeful that as work on Anglo-Indian history snowballs, it will bring to light women in the pre ‘47 period who entered the discourse on nationalism that will enrich and possibly complicate this discussion.

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fuelling the movement that came to be known as Young Bengal. He espoused ‘nationalism’, but was also very much the ‘cosmopolitan’. While claimed by Anglo-Indians, Derozio was not seen as Other by Bengalis of his time as well as of today. He is celebrated as social reformer and patriot and embraced by many Indians. This is in no small part due to Derozio himself. He identified as a son of the soil and was proud of his Indian birth and belonging. This comes through in his preferred moniker ‘East Indian’ instead of ‘Eurasian’ and his identification of East Indians as one group within the larger construct of country (Chaudhuri 2012, 84–85). In 1831, he gave a speech at a public meeting at the Calcutta Town Hall, which has been described as one that ‘deserves a place at the very head of all nationalist speeches made in India’, wherein he fused East Indian and Indian identities: ‘I am an East Indian, and therefore I ought to be here; … I am interested in the welfare of my countrymen, and therefore I ought to be here; I love my country, and therefore I ought to be here; I love justice, and therefore I ought to be here …’ (Chaudhuri 2008, 342). Derozio did not display any sense of confusion about his East Indian identity and his love of country. In his ideas we find influences of the Enlightenment, French Revolution and Greek struggle for independence from Ottomans, regarded by philhellenes as a struggle for freedom from despotism. The latter possibly contributed to Derozio’s negative characterization and Othering of ‘Mussulmans’. He also talks about the defeat of ‘Hindoostan’ by the ‘Mussalman’ (Chaudhuri 2008, 130–131). His denunciation of Muslims is even more striking by (what from our contemporary perspective would appear) a problematic absence of a similar castigation of British colonialism as he had for the Ottomans. But leaving this aside, what is most significant for me is how comfortable Derozio was in his eclecticism. He didn’t exhibit any conflictual pushes and pulls of identity between India and loyalty to Europe. The embrace in which he was and continues to be held as a patriot disrupts the pattern of normative Othering of Anglo-Indians. Could it be because he wore his love of country on his sleeve? And that trounced any questions about identity and belonging? Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) later on in the nineteenth century lived through a period of growing consciousness of ‘nationalism’. His nationalism however emanated from humanism and inclusiveness. Earlier on he had been influenced by neo-Hinduism, which came partly from a rejection of Western superiority, and a privileging of spiritualism over materialism. In essays he penned in the 1890s, we find a ‘personal sense of racial humiliation’ (Subramanian and Ray 1988, 248). The swadeshi

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movement to end the 1905 Partition of Bengal which he initially supported brought him to appreciate the constructive aspects of nationalism, such as freedom and dignity, while realizing also the destruction that nationalism could unleash by throwing up ‘narrow domestic walls’ of communalism and class oppression (Tagore 1912, 1996). He put great store in things that emerged organically or arose spontaneously from human interaction. Thus he distinguished between earlier rulers of India such as the Mughals who embraced the land and identified with it and the later British who remained aloof. And he observed that ‘nation’ resulted from artificial and deliberately set objectives. His abhorrence of pettiness and contradictions in nascent nationalism in India drove him to embrace universalism. He rejected ‘narrow parochial parameters of identity’ and ‘dead habit’ (Chew 2015, 41). Parts of his novel Gora are very pertinent to a discussion about race, identity, ‘nation’ and Othering. The novel counterposes tradition with change, inflexibility with openness, as Gora, the eponymous character, transitions from fierce Hindu nationalist to universal humanist, and in a climactic epiphanic moment comes to the realization that lineage, parentage, country or nation are irrelevant; along with this he rejects religion- and caste-based identity. In that moment, all that had anchored his identity and his life’s commitment dissolved and became irrelevant. Like Derozio, Tagore believed that race, parentage and origins were immaterial. What mattered was who and what one identified with. Cyril John Stracey (1915–1988) was an Anglo-Indian serving in the British Indian Army during the Second World War. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese on the Jitra front on the Thai-Malay border, from where he was recruited from a prisoner of war camp by the Indian National Army (INA). Stracey explains how a senior Indian officer of the INA met with him and four other Anglo-Indians, three of officer rank and two who were sergeants, after which he decided to join the INA. In his words he had come the ‘complete circle’ (Bose 2011, 299). There was a change profound enough to risk court-martial and firing squad if captured. Later, when Stracey said, ‘all of us Indians held our heads high’ (Bose 2011, 299), the Anglo-Indian and the Indian had become one; the identification as ‘Indian’ was complete. In some ways Stracey was echoing Derozio. The moment of the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 is particularly prescient for making tangible the links between nationalism and representations and marginalization/minoritization of the community. Among all the horrors of Partition, its ultimate tragedy is that the British

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colonizers emerged unscathed, while colonized Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs turned on one another. And the events of Partition, predicated to some extent on notions of predominantly Hindu and Muslim communal nationalism, passed over the emergent nations’ Others, such as Anglo-­ Indians, Armenians, Jews and Parsis. In relation to the crux of the discussion in this chapter, the fact that Anglo-Indians were not recognized as part of either India or Pakistan meant they got passed over; they remained invisible and they lived. Of course they were impacted (Chew 2015; McMenamin 2006), but they were never targeted for who they were and thus were not counted in the narratives of that moment of independence and horrific dislocation. Only relatively recently are we getting publications that document and analyse the experiences of non-majoritarian communities, such as Anglo-Indians and Dalits during Partition, a result of scholarship to consciously include Others who have systematically been written out of history (Bandopadhyay and Basu Ray Chaudhury 2017; Bandopadhyay 2009;  McMenamin 2006, 2008, 2010; Sen 2017).17 Specifically about Anglo-Indians (because that’s the focus of this chapter), I locate their relative absence from this historiography until now, not just because of their relatively small population size, or because Partition is framed as a Hindu-Muslim-Sikh affair, but because there is an actual excision of Anglo-Indians from the nation. Anglo-Indians were not regarded as part of either, India or Pakistan, and that is why they remained untouched by the intense blood-letting. In his lifetime Derozio was embraced as part of the youthful challenge to a colonial and cultural status quo in Bengal. However, the times in which a Derozio could articulate a resounding identification with an Indian nation with positive echoes, without discrimination, in spaces that were hungry for such ideals had gone. Tagore’s/Gora’s ideal of universal humanism was shredded by ‘narrow domestic walls’ (Chew 2015, 41). But post-colonial anxiety over being included in the nation co-existed with assertion of the right of the community to maintain its unique characteristics. Frank Anthony was the pre-Independence negotiator for Anglo-Indians, and he became the long-standing Anglo-Indian MP after independence. When he urged Anglo-Indians to hold onto the English language, the way of life and ‘distinct culture’ but remember that they 17  Works of fiction came to this earlier, for example, Manto. And there is Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man, 1988 (also published as Cracking India, 1991) which narrates Partition from the perspective of a Parsi girl in Lahore.

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were Indians and that they were always so, he was throwing down the gauntlet to those from the majority who would challenge Anglo-Indians’ nationalist credentials, as well as urging patriotism for India from his community members who may have felt ambivalent about it. Clearly, for Anthony and others who thought like him, in this new era of independent India it became imperative to not stand on the side lines but to merge into the created nation, while preserving community uniqueness (Anthony 1969, 150). Almost always, discourse of nationalism relies heavily on gendered constructs. In India, the personification of nation as mother, Mother India/ Bharat Mata, was very strong,18 along with essentialized and prescribed feminine and masculine performativity to bolster nationalism. Women bear the burden of maintaining the soul of the nation (Chatterjee 1989; Chew 1988). However, Anglo-Indian women did not fit this constructed essentialized femininity, as has been indicated above. And as such, they did not belong. And by extension their community did not either. Anglo-­ Indian women, non-conformers in this regard, contributed to the sense of community as one that was not part of the nation. I found that the lens of nationalism contributes a great deal to understanding how Anglo-Indians have been situated and represented in the past as well as today. ‘Nation’ is a concept that reflects the vagaries of time and context and can be manipulated to construct and deconstruct in/out groups and Others.19 Implanting ‘nation’ and nationalism meaningfully problematizes ‘belonging’ for Anglo-Indians. While it is true that there are Anglo-Indians who went abroad post-independence because they, like other Indians, felt British-identified, there were also Anglo-Indians who along with other South Asians left simply because of uncertainties about security, stability and economic prosperity in the post-colonial states. However, even today there is a widely held belief that all

18  The political slogan, ‘Bande Mataram’ (Hail the Motherland) of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is being resurrected in India today by the Hindu ethnonationalist governing political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). And the iconography is identical to that of the early twentieth century—emblazoned on a map of India, a mother goddess figure seated on a lion. 19  As I write these words, they speak to the times we are living in. In many parts of the world, this logic is being resurrected and utilized by political players with detrimental consequences for minorities within majoritarian nations.

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Anglo-Indians who left did so because they did not identify with the nation (Lahiri-Dutt 2011; Andrews 2017).20 In this piece I have described in some detail my research trajectory into and in Anglo-Indian Studies; why I didn’t get to it until later; how representations and my own identity have been enmeshed; how I have found that nation and nationalism need to be read in consonance with gender in order to attain a better understanding of the marginalized position of Anglo-Indians; how paradigms that interrogate power and locate hegemony facilitate analysis of these categories. By doing so, I have enriched my understanding of Anglo-Indians in the Indian/South Asian context. I hope this is also so for the reader. If I have contributed somewhat to understanding the genesis and perpetuation of grotesque representations of Anglo-Indians, as well as our hyper minoritization, I will be satisfied.

References Abel, E. (1988). The Anglo-Indian Community: Survival in India. Delhi: Chanakya Publications. Allen, C. (1975). Plain Tales From the Raj. London: Andre Deutsch. Andrews, R. (2017). Is the Anglo-Indian ‘Identity Crisis’ a Myth? In Z. L. Rocha & F. Fozdar (Eds.), Mixed Race in Asia: Past, Present and Future (pp. 179–184). London: Routledge. Anthony, F. (1969). Britain’s Betrayal in India: the story of the Anglo-Indian Community. Bombay: Allied Publishers. Bandopadhyay, S., & Basu Ray Chaudhury, Anasua. (2017). Partition in Bengal: Re-visiting the Caste Question 1946–47. Studies in History, 33(2), 234–261. Bandopadhyay, S. (2009). Partition and the Ruptures in Dalit Identity Politics in Bengal. Asian Studies Review, 33(4), 455–567. Beauvoir, Simone de. (1974). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books. Bose, S. (2011). His Majesty’s Opponent. Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle Against Empire. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Bruce, H. (1913). The Eurasians. London: John Long Ltd.. Burchett, W. G. (1942). Trek Back from Burma. Allahabad: Kitabistan.

20  During the International Anglo-Indian Reunion in Kolkata in January 2013, I was interviewed by a reporter from a major daily who pressed me about Anglo-Indians who’d left India. She was very dissatisfied with my response which was that economic considerations were paramount as they were for other Indians who’d also left. This didn’t fit her pre-determined conclusion about Anglo-Indian alienation in post-independent India.

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Cassity, K. (2010). There are no Soldiers Anymore’: The Persistence of Anglo-­ Indian Stereotypes in ‘Bow Barracks Forever’. International Journal of Anglo-­ Indian Studies, 10(1), 42–55. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2016). The Professional Lives of Anglo-Indian Working Women in the Twilight of Empire. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 16(2), 3–29. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2018). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism. London and New York: Routledge. Chatterjee, P. (1989). The Nationalist Resolution to the Woman Question. In K. Sangari & S. Vaid (Eds.), Recasting Women (pp. 233–253). Kali for Women: New Delhi. Chatterji, S. (2007). The Anglo-Indian Identity in Cinema. The Tribune. Retrieved May 8, 2018, from http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070701/spectrum/main7.htm. Chaudhuri, R. (Ed.). (2008). Derozio, Poet of India. The Definitive Edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chaudhuri, R. (2012). The Politics of Naming. In Freedom and Beef Steaks– Colonial Calcutta Culture (pp. 68–91). Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan. Chew, D. (1988). Out of the Antahpur? Gender Subordination and Social Reform in Nineteenth Century Bengal. M.A. Thesis. Concordia University, Montreal. Chew, D. (1994). Of Unchaste Widows and Tenants for Life: Legal Constructions of Gender and Property in Nineteenth Century Bengal. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Calcutta, Kolkata. Chew, D. (1996). Introduction. Special Issue of Labour Capital and Society/ Travail, capital et société ‘Women and Work in South Asia’, 19(1–2), 7–14. Chew, D. (2002a). The Search for Kathleen McNally and Other Chimerical Women: Colonial and Post-colonial Gender Representations of Eurasians. In B. Bose (Ed.), Translating Desire: Gender, Culture and Society in Contemporary India (pp. 1–29). New Delhi: Katha. Chew, D. (2002b). Not Cottoning On. Review of Cotton Mary. The Gazette (Montreal) 2000. Chew, D. (2010). Will the Real Anglo-Indian Woman Please Stand Up! In M. Deefholts & S. Deefholts (Eds.), Women of Anglo-India: Tales and Memoirs (pp. 187–195). Monroe Township, NJ: CTR, Inc., Publishing. Chew, D. (2015). Implanting Nation/alism, Problematizing Anglo-India/ns. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 15(1), 34–54. Chughtai, I. (1995). The Crooked Line (T. Naqvi, Trans.). Delhi: Kali for Women. D’Cruz, G. (2006). Midnight’s Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Post/Colonial Literature. Switzerland: Peter Lang. De, S. (2008). Marginal Europeans in Colonial India: 1860–1920. Kolkata: Thema.

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Tagore, R. (1912). 35 ‘Gitanjali.’ The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from http://tagoreweb.in/. Tagore, R. (1996). The Home and the World. London: Penguin. Woodcock, G., & Onley, T. (1985). The Walls of India. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Denys.

CHAPTER 12

Anglo-Indian Women in Teaching: The Interplay of Gender, Profession, Community Identities and Religiosity Jyothsna Latha Belliappa and Sanchia deSouza

Introduction and Background Anglo-Indian women have played a significant role in English-medium school education in independent India. Taking advantage of their knowledge of English, their exposure to Western music, art and literature, the availability of subsidized training offered by the church and their Anglo-­ Indian identity, they have created careers in ‘English-medium’ schools (schools where English is the medium of instruction) in Bangalore.1 Although they are a minuscule minority, these teachers have made significant contributions to the education of an English-speaking workforce that 1  Bangalore has been recently been re-named Bengaluru (the traditional name of the city), but I use Bangalore since this is the name commonly used by the Anglo-Indian community.

J. L. Belliappa (*) Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru, India S. deSouza University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_12

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played an important role in India’s emergence as a global economic power. However, scholarly literature has rarely examined their experiences. Within the vibrant field of Anglo-Indian studies, while there has been much engagement with issues of identity (Blunt 2005; Andrews 2005; Caplan 2001; Sen 2017), gender (Otto 2010; Chew 2010; Caplan 2001; Sen 2017) and the community’s educational and employment challenges (Sen 2017; Muthiah and MacLure 2013; Andrews 2005), specific and sustained focus on women in teaching has been limited (although Sen 2017, does address Anglo-Indian’s declining presence in school teaching in the context of Kolkata). By engaging specifically with teachers’ experiences, this chapter attempts to bring an additional perspective to the existing literature on Anglo-Indian women’s identities. The professional lives of the teachers interviewed for the study are marked by their identities as women from a linguistic and religious minority. They are all employed in private unaided ‘minority’ schools of Bangalore, the capital of the state of Karnataka in Southern India. The chapter attempts to take an intersectional perspective to understand how gender, community, religious identity and professional contexts shape teachers’ experiences. However, these experiences need to be examined within the light of historical circumstances which shaped both Anglo-­ Indian women’s employment choices and the emergence of ‘English-­ medium’ schools in the city. Anglo-Indian Women and Paid Employment: Historical Circumstances Given their history, the Anglo-Indians occupied a somewhat precarious space in colonial India. In the 1700s when interracial marriages were encouraged, children of such unions could aspire for some economic and social security. By and large, the Anglo-Indian (or Eurasian, as they were known at the time) sons of British officers found jobs in the East Indian Company’s army and women married into either race. While some British soldiers and officers did abandon their Indian offspring, given the difficulties of returning to England to marry and the widespread acceptance of interracial unions, many Anglo-Indian families flourished across India and a few also made their way to England (Muthiah and MacLure 2013; Chew 2010). Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, racial boundaries between the colonizers and the colonized hardened, resulting in the

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marginalization of Anglo-Indians (Otto 2010). Indians identified the community with their British progenitors, and the British tended to view them with suspicion and embarrassment as their existence evidenced an earlier time of elastic racial boundaries. Over time, the Anglo-Indian community that had adopted English as its mother tongue became increasingly endogamous, with a distinctive hybrid culture. The community also became almost universally Christian. Paucity of space does not allow a full exploration of how the Westernized religious practices of the community have evolved in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries partly in response to Hindu nationalism (Andrews 2010), but it is noteworthy that the community tends to be deeply religious and that their identification with Christianity has enabled Anglo-Indians to access to preferential employment in religious minority institutions. Although the community’s status diminished considerably in the nineteenth century, Anglo-Indian men continued to find low paid work in the railways, post and telegraph services and lower-level administrative jobs. Employment in the army was also available based on the needs of the Empire. This changed in 1919 when Indian political demands prompted the Montague Chelmsford Reforms which opened up employment opportunities to other Indian communities, restricting Anglo-Indian men’s previous access to these jobs. Within this context Anglo-Indian women began to seek work, usually as nurses, teachers and stenographers (Otto 2010). Their entrance into paid employment and consequent opportunities to socialize with both European and Indian men at a time when other Indian communities observed strict gender segregation fuelled anxieties about their sexuality (Otto 2010; Chew 2010). Negative characterizations of Anglo-Indian women as licentious and sexually indiscriminate, which had served to maintain racial boundaries in the colonial period, continued in independent India (see Gangoli 2005, on representation of Anglo-Indians in Bollywood). It is important, however, to understand that stigmatization is only one aspect of a complex picture. Entering paid employment enabled Anglo-­ Indian women to acquire professional skills and life experiences that were not widely available to Hindu and Muslim women. Many nurses travelled a great distance to participate in the two world wars. Uther Charlton-­ Stevens (2016) who documented the experiences of Anglo-Indian women in paid employment in the early twentieth century argues that they constructed their identities as Anglophone Christians from India by

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identifying with what they viewed as a Western (chiefly British) sense of professionalism that they acquired via their training under Europeans. He suggests that they selectively drew on their professional skills, knowledge of English and other forms of cultural capital to create a British identity when required. This agency and creativity not only enabled them to impress colleagues and superiors but afforded them some economic security within the uncertainties created by World War II. The community’s leaders tended to look upon women’s professional employment with both pride and anxiety (Blunt 2002). Frank Anthony (1964/2007), who was the de facto head of the community, acknowledged Anglo-Indian women’s significant war contribution as nurses and secretaries while also exhorting them not to be tempted away from the security of home and parental influence (indicating the community’s concern that its women might form relationships with soldiers from the Allied armies). Recent ethnographic research (discussed in the literature section) suggests that this contradictory attitude regarding women’s identities continues. However Anglo-Indian women continued to enter paid employment, particularly in (erstwhile) colonial cities such as Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai. Anglo-Indian Teachers in Bangalore’s English-Medium Schools Bangalore was, before 1950, part of the princely state of Mysore, ruled by the Wodeyars who allowed the British to establish a military cantonment in the eastern part of the city. The cantonment was culturally and linguistically distinct from the adjoining Bangalore City (known as the pete). In the nineteenth century, alongside garrisons of the British army and other colonial administrators, a small but influential Anglo-Indian population also emerged in the cantonment.2 Even after independence, when the pete and the cantonment were merged, the latter retained its cultural distinctiveness, remaining ‘a little piece of England in India’, as one of our informants argued. Several private missionary schools were established in the Cantonment in the second half of the nineteenth century, including St. Joseph’s Boys’ School, Bishop Cotton’s Girls’ and Boys’ Schools and St Francis Xavier’s School for Girls. They were followed, in the early twentieth century, by 2  The languages spoken in the cantonment were English, Tamil and Dakhni (a dialect of Urdu), while Kannada was more common in the Pete.

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Clarence High School, St. Germain’s School for Boys and Sophia Girls’ High School. These schools followed the British curriculum (till the 1960s) and were affiliated with various Catholic orders or Protestant churches. After independence, a new set of co-educational, linguistic minority schools were founded by the Anglo-Indian community: The Frank Anthony School, Stracey Memorial School, Tunbridge School and Eastwood High School. Anthony (1964/2007) associated the promotion of English with the community’s survival in independent India and established the Frank Anthony schools in Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata to create job opportunities and offer subsidized education for the community while also admitting fee-paying non-Anglo-Indians. All these schools are affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (popularly known as ‘The Council’) whose exams are believed to require a much higher standard of English than the Karnataka state examination board. Since independence these schools have been part of the nation’s modernization project. Upwardly mobile Hindu and Muslim parents sought the English-medium, Westernized education that these schools and the Anglo-Indian teachers whom they employed offered for their children. Although Bangalore’s emergence as India’s software capital in the 1990s has brought in new schooling choices in the form of ‘alternative (secular)’ and international schools, the continuing value of the older religious and linguistic minority schools can be seen in the long queues outside them during ‘admission season’. Most of our interviewees began their careers in these minority schools in the 1960s and 1970s, continuing until the twenty-first century, and therefore experienced the changes in the city’s schooling ‘market’. Over time, teachers from other communities have acquired fluency in English and access to Western music, art, drama and (English) elocution. Anglo-Indian teachers have found that their hold over this cultural capital is not as exclusive as it once was which Sen (2017) also found in Kolkata. However, as the discussion section indicates, they are still highly employable.

Literature Gender Amongst Anglo-Indians Several authors have examined gender amongst Anglo-Indians, arguing that its intersection with other identities such as race (Otto 2010; Chew

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2010; Caplan 2001; Blunt 2005), class (Sen 2017; Andrews 2005) and generation (Sen 2017) must be taken into account.3 From a historical perspective, Brent Otto (2010) argues that Anglo-Indian women’s bodies represent sites of ‘transgression’ in a ‘race-conscious and hierarchical society’ (Otto 2010, p. 199) not only because their existence is testimony of interracial relationships but also because their sexuality threatens existing racial boundaries. Highlighting the objectification of Anglo-Indian women in literature, Dolores Chew (2010, p. 192) argues that ‘an Anglo-­ Indian woman was seen to combine exoticism with linguistic and cultural accessibility, making her attractive to both European and Indian men.’ This liminal position between two races, languages and cultures led to the stereotypes discussed earlier. Discussing gendered conceptions of home and belonging in textual and oral histories, Alison Blunt (2002, 2005) argues that the difference between Anglo-Indians and other Indian communities is expressed in terms of male European ancestry, while the female ancestor is conflated with the image of the home and motherland. In the colonial period, this led to representations of Anglo-Indian women as cultural reproducers within the home and the association of the domestic sphere with community building for the future. It may be argued that this representation of women is not limited to Anglo-Indians. Partha Chatterjee (1989) claims with reference to upper-caste Hindus in nineteenth-century Bengal that women were charged with preserving the spiritual essence of the culture within the family and nation which was believed to be threatened by colonialism.4 However, it could be said that in socially and culturally marginalized communities, this representation of womanhood is particularly powerful. Consequently, women’s virtue becomes a fraught issue, and attempts are made to preserve it through paternalistic supervision by parents and community leaders. These anxieties about virtue have an impact on how the community views women in the contemporary period. In this context, two ethnographic studies conducted in different cities offer contrasting insights. Lionel Caplan’s (2000) study in Chennai suggests that while Anglo-­ Indians might be patrilineal at the level of family and descent, their households are matrifocal, with women making a significant (often the major) 3  While we acknowledge the importance of class and generation, it will not be possible to do justice to these topics in this chapter. 4  It is worth recalling the feminist argument that women often resisted this characterization of their roles.

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economic contribution, and keeping families together through cooking, home-making, childcare/eldercare and, importantly, maintaining kinship and community ties (supporting aged relatives, planning visits and get-­ togethers, celebrating festivities, church-work). He argues that men acknowledge and praise this aspect of Anglo-Indian women’s identities. In contrast, Sudarshana Sen (2017, p. 38) found in her ethnography in Kolkata that male interviewees from the community often questioned the value of her research, calling the women ‘mindless’ and ‘without brains’, a view that was echoed by non-Anglo-Indians of both sexes. Sen contends that it is this construction of Anglo-Indian women as unworthy subjects of study that makes it imperative that we examine their experiences. Sen suggests that these negative stereotypes, along with the hyper-­sexualization mentioned earlier, make women’s positions particularly vulnerable in the workplace, in their own community and in wider society as they confront multiple and intersecting patriarchies. Therefore, ‘male guardianship remains a strong force’ in their lives (Sen 2017, p.  184). Given their Western dress and customs, their limited fluency in Indian languages and the stigmatization of their identity, Anglo-Indian women tend to have limited social capital outside the community. Additionally, their access to decision-making power and leadership roles in community associations is restricted. Whilst acknowledging Sen’s conclusions, we need to also recall Charlton-Stevens’ (2016) argument that women do find creative ways of engaging their dual identity. Gender in the Teaching Profession The argument that Anglo-Indian women inhabit multiple and intersecting patriarchies (Sen 2017) has parallels in the lives of female school teachers in different parts of the world. It has been argued that given the numerical predominance of women in the school teaching profession, gender closely intersects with professional identity, marginalizing them within educational policy decisions and institutional practices (Acker 1999 with regard to the UK; Apple 1988 with regard to the USA). Sandra Acker claims that women are underrepresented in school management due to the demands of family life, career breaks during pregnancy and the early years of motherhood, lack of female role models and limited time for professional development. This view is echoed in the Indian context by Indumathi and Vijaysimha (2011).

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Jackie Kirk (2004) has argued in relation to Pakistan that female teachers become co-opted into the nation’s modernization project, their reproductive role as women never far from their identity as teachers. Rarely, if ever, do they have any influence over educational policy, administration and curriculum development. Poonam Batra (2005), Nandini Manjrekar (2013) and Vimala Ramachandran (2016) make similar arguments regarding India, stating that while new educational policies recognize the agency and wellbeing of children, the teacher is framed as a passive enactor of educational reforms. For instance, state policy encourages women to train for and enter the profession in a bid to increase girls’ enrolment in schools rather than with the aim of creating viable career options for women (Manjrekar 2013; Indumathi and Vijaysimha 2011). Ayesha Khurshid (2017) contends (also with reference to Pakistan) that women’s education and teaching career enables only limited empowerment in exchange for submitting to further regulation of their identities and sexualities. The growing number of women in the profession, Manjrekar (2013) argues, hides the disempowerment that they face within it, burdened with administrative work, alienated, closely monitored and employed on short-­ term, vulnerable contracts. Moreover, state policy, public opinion and cultural norms tend to view teaching as an extension of women’s reproductive role, suggesting that women have an innate suitability for it. This view of teaching is also internalized by women teachers themselves who allude to their love for children or maternal instincts when discussing their commitment to their profession (Kirk 2004). Indumathi and Vijaysimha (2011) argue that while government school teachers express their intention to continue in the profession (possibly for the security and relatively comfortable income that government jobs offer), private school teachers, who are paid much less, tend to change or give up their jobs depending on changing life situations such as migration, marriage or motherhood. Clearly, the remuneration and working conditions in private schools, where the majority of women teachers are employed, are not attractive enough to retain teachers. This insight is important to understanding the lives of Anglo-Indian teachers, who are exclusively employed in private schools. Taking into account the above themes from the literature, we now examine the experiences of Anglo-Indian teachers to understand how gender, community and religion influence their professional experiences. But before doing so, a brief digression into methods is necessary.

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Methods In 2013 we conducted 16 interviews with female Anglo-Indian teachers who spent a large part of their careers in Bangalore (see Table 12.1) and 9 interviews with additional informants. We used a snowballing method to find interviewees, drawing first on personal contacts and later on interviewees’ networks, which created a certain degree of trust in the interviewer. While interviews with the informants were generally under two hours long, recorded interviews with teachers lasted between two and three hours and were preceded by and followed with meetings or phone conversations which enabled us to ask further questions. Interviews focused primarily on their professional lives but personal details also emerged. To protect interviewees’ privacy, we have substituted both their first and last names with pseudonyms, but a few interviewees are identifiable due to the specificities of their accounts. However, these interviewees have declared that they are comfortable about being recognized. Despite some initial reluctance (expressed, e.g., as questions, ‘what could I possibly tell you about your research?’), most interviewees were quite forthright. The semi-structured, life-story method used for interviewing is likely to have enabled this openness. Life-story interviews are guided by a sense of temporality (‘I took decision A because of reason B which led me to situation C’). They require interviewers to coax and co-­ construct the narrative forward by asking open-ended questions and offering empathetic comments whilst being careful not to ‘lead’ the interview (Plummer 2001). As feminist scholars have argued, power constantly shifts between researcher and researched (Letherby 2004). Interviewees sometimes displayed a strong sense of authority over their narratives and, at other times, sought affirmation from us—the interviewers (please see de Souza and Belliappa 2018, for further discussion on methodology). After the interviews, as we analysed, edited and prepared to disseminate interviewees’ accounts, we were acutely conscious of our power to represent interviewees, especially in light of prejudices faced by the community. While we have remained true to the conclusions that emerged through analysis, we were aware of the dangers of recreating stereotypes or presenting either ‘victim’ or ‘heroine’ narratives, both of which would obscure the complexity of teachers’ experiences.

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Table 12.1  The interviewees Number of women teachers interviewed: 16 Current marital position:  • 10 married  • 3 widowed  • 3 never married

Age range:  • 3 in 70s  • 8 in 60s  • 2 in 50s  • 1 in 40s  • 2 in 30s

Current job status:  • 1 retired (as headmistress)   • 4 semi-retired (working part-time); one had retired as headmistress  • 10 working within schools  • 1 educational consultant Professional experience Education International exposure  • 3 taught at international  • 4 obtained BA/BSc  • 3 taught in Bangalore, schools after spending degrees before starting across India and several years in minority their careers overseas schools  • 4 pursued B.Ed and  • 3 taught across India  • 13 taught in linguistic or MA by correspondence and Bangalore religious minority schools while in service  • 10 remained in  • 7 have a TTC (teacher Bangalore throughout training certificate) their careers  • 1 has no formal training Number of additional informants interviewed: 10a  • 4 non-Anglo-Indian senior educators (including educational consultants and school principals)  • 3 prominent Anglo-Indians who have family members in the teaching profession  • 2 male Anglo-Indian teachers  • 1 non-Anglo-Indian film-maker who has made films on the Anglo-Indian community. a We use the term ‘informants’ for prominent Anglo-Indians (not from the teaching profession) and non-­ Anglo-­Indian educators to distinguish them from our primary interviewees: the Anglo-Indian women teachers. These additional informants were able to shed light on how female Anglo-Indian teachers were viewed by others in the education profession and the wider community and thereby inform our analysis

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Discussion In this section we examine the relationship between gender, community, religion and professional experience in the formation of an Anglo-Indian teacher’s identity. As argued earlier in this chapter, gender is never far from a school teacher’s professional identity and responsibilities. However, interviewees’ professional identities are also closely informed by their membership of a distinctive linguistic and religious minority. They draw on the cultural and social capital associated with their community as well as on their religiosity in constructing their identities. It may also be recalled that identity is always constructed in a social context. Therefore the gaze of others (colleagues, community members, school management and the wider society) plays an important role in forming the teachers’ identities. The Value of an Anglo-Indian Teacher I get lot of requests for teachers, ‘We want Anglo- Indians.” I said, “I wish I had a tree that I could shake and all the Anglo-Indian teachers would fall…” [laughter] …, that Chairman [of a school] still calls me. He says, “I want teachers. No, No, no, no, not any teacher, I want only Anglo-Indian teachers … English is their mother tongue, so they [Anglo-Indians] have a lot to give back to the other communities in India—to benefit them’. Sandra Hayes. (Aged 55 years, married with one adult daughter) She said, ‘Come, come and teach in my school. I want you people only, you people with skirts to come and teach in my school’. Laura DeMello. (Aged 68 years, single)

While Sandra (who opened her own teacher training agency after two decades of school teaching) is frequently requested to help schools recruit Anglo-Indian teachers, Laura (now retired) was accosted on the street by a stranger who wanted to recruit her on the spot based on her Western dress. While earlier research suggests that Westernized dress and identity can result in the stigmatization of Anglo-Indian women (Sen 2017; Chew 2010), we found that it can also cue that they embody desirable forms of cultural capital. As Sandra argues, echoing Frank Anthony’s views, AngloIndians can overcome some of their social marginalization by teaching English, and thereby relate on terms of relative equality with majority communities (while also participating in nation building). This is particularly true of the early decades immediately after independence.

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Margery Webster speaks nostalgically about the 1970s when the (predominantly Hindu) parents of her students were deeply grateful to Anglo-­ Indian teachers for imparting this coveted form of cultural capital in their children. She stated that unlike present-day parents, they showed complete faith in her teaching, saying, ‘Do whatever you think is necessary to give—[their child] a good education’. She believes that some of the child-­ centric methods that are followed today have disempowered teachers and eroded the respect accorded to the profession which Vimala Ramachandran (2016) also found in her research amongst government school teachers. As primary school teachers, our interviewees inculcate certain writing styles and speech patterns, cultural capital that benefits students throughout their lives. They shared instances of correcting pronunciation styles picked up at home (e.g. putting emphasis on the correct syllable while pronouncing banana), of ‘drilling’ rules of grammar and punctuation and working on children’s diction through elocution lessons. Anglo-Indian teachers are believed to have a strong work ethic and high attentiveness to detail. Several informants described Anglo-Indians as being ‘very particular’, a claim borne out by teachers’ description of their work. For instance, Laura states, ‘You check whether they are putting the date or the heading, lettering, numbering [of answers] and so on’. Attention to such details enables students to succeed in the nationwide ICSE examinations where examiners mark thousands of answer-scripts in a matter of days. However, as one school principal argued, this attention is beyond academic work. Anglo-Indian teachers, he stated, teach ‘the little graces, [of] how to say please and thank you and how to wear your school uniform’ which are lost as fewer of them join the profession. In strategically using their Anglo-phonic identity and knowledge of Western music or art to build a career, the interviewees showed the creativity and initiative that Charlton-Stevens (2016) found in accounts of early twentieth-century Anglo-Indian women. Importantly, teachers created a degree of respectability by engaging in what society terms a ‘noble profession’ and thus overcame some of the social marginalization that Sen (2017) and Chew (2010) found in their research on Anglo-Indian women’s identities. However, as other communities in metropolitan India learn to speak English, the Anglo-Indians no longer have an exclusive hold over this cultural capital. Also, as more lucrative jobs are available in the globalizing economy, younger Anglo-Indians are less likely to enter school

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teaching.5 Some of the older teachers shared that their daughters had showed an aptitude for teaching but no interest in the profession. But as the opening quotes of this subsection indicate, Anglo-Indians do get preferential employment due to the cultural capital associated with their community identity. Teaching as a Career ‘Choice’ Anglo-Indians were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Francesca Sinha Aged 65

Most of our interviewees’ families could not afford university education. After finishing school, they took the two-year teacher training certificate (TTC) course offered and subsidized by the Church in Bangalore and Madras (Chennai). Thus, many entered the profession by the age of 18.6 Reasons cited for choosing teacher training include love for children, the need for an income, parental advice or the advice of their own teachers (who often acted as mentors). Many Anglo-Indian parents were reluctant to send their daughters into secretarial work at a young age as they were afraid of their being exploited by strange men. Teachers indicated that because they didn’t speak other Indian languages fluently, government school employment was not available to them. Interviewees’ first jobs were usually obtained via family friends and church leaders. Obtaining jobs in this manner enabled interviewees to begin their careers in relatively safe and familiar environments but limited their ability to negotiate contracts and terms of employment in an individualistic and impersonal manner. On completing their training, some teachers returned to teach in the schools where they had studied. For instance, Carole, on completing her BA, was encouraged by her mother, Elizabeth, to volunteer at her old school while awaiting her BA certificate (required to train for an office job), but to her surprise, she received a pay cheque after a month. Feeling grateful, Carole remained with the school for the next 17 years. She speaks of her work with satisfaction but acknowledges that she finds it difficult to engage as an equal with her former teachers. 5  Some young Anglo-Indians have found lucrative work as ‘accent-trainers’ in multinational call centres. 6  The TTC equips teachers to teach till the 7th standard.

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Although the sense of obligation created by employing social capital constrains women’s professional agency early in their careers, it must be recognized that they showed tremendous initiative even at this young age by moving away from their hometowns to obtain qualifications and take up teaching positions far from their native towns. After spending some years in their first jobs, Norma, Georgiana and Margery all chose to move from their southern hometowns to schools in the north of India to gain experience, and a few, such as Francesca and Jane, made the transition to better paid international schools. Others such as Sandra and Rosemary moved from smaller towns in Karnataka to Bangalore to seek training and employment. Their agency was exercised not only to meet personal goals but also to support their families. Thus gender plays a major role in teachers’ career choice: families encourage women to take up teaching based on the gendered assumption that it is a suitable career for young women with future household responsibilities, since the school day ends in the afternoon. Interviewees themselves construct teaching as an extension of women’s maternal role, a characterization of women teachers that has been found in earlier research (Indumathi and Vijaysimha 2011; Kirk 2004). As Jackie Kirk (2004) argues, even when it is presented as a personal choice, a teaching career is chosen within notions of respectable career options for women, family expectations, ideas about women’s supposed nurturing abilities and their role in nation building (via social reproduction). Earning an Income My father was employed but we elder children had to contribute towards the education of younger children [siblings]. I got Rs.150 as an assistant teacher in 1977. This was a very big amount in those days. … I sent money home, paid hostel fees, and looked after my own education with what I saved. After marriage, I would contribute towards my family and towards my husband’s family also, both of us contributed to each other’s families. We would support family members who wanted to get education of some sort. Sandra Hayes, 55 I started my married life with zero bank balance because whenever F and I went out [before they were married], I would buy something for the home … because in our community we don’t have dowry. Everything we do for ourselves [as a young married couple]. Patricia Hughes

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Interviewees’ accounts indicate a strong need to contribute financially to their parents’ homes and, as Patricia suggests, set up their marital homes. In this respect, they differ from women of other Indian communities. Patricia Caplan (1985), in a study based in Chennai, argues that upper-caste (Hindu) middle-class women’s presence in paid employment is viewed as embarrassing to their families as it indicates men’s failure as providers. The precariousness of the contemporary neoliberal economy requires middle-class women’s financial contribution, but mainstream Hindu families are still sensitive about acknowledging that women’s earnings are necessary to sustain their lifestyle (Belliappa 2013). In contrast, our interviewees’ families appear to have been willing to accept their earnings possibly because of the historical circumstances in which Anglo-­ Indian women first entered paid employment. Several interviewees indicated that self-sufficiency and savings were encouraged by their parents, especially by mothers. However, interviewees rarely negotiated salaries which were limited by their lack of college education (informants indicated that salaries are calculated based on experience and qualifications). Even later in their careers as they acquired confidence, teachers felt constrained in their negotiations since private school salaries are regulated by the school boards, which included personal acquaintances and community leaders. However, many tried to enter a higher wage bracket by taking their BA and B.Ed. degree via correspondence which was difficult when managing family responsibilities and the demands of their jobs. As has been mentioned earlier, women have limited access to leadership roles in the Anglo-Indian associations (Sen 2017).7 Jane Andrews’s remarks that ‘whatever salary they gave us, we took it. We never grumbled. There was no use of grumbling’ indicate resigned acceptance of the situation. However, her subsequent remarks suggest that poor pay is connected with gender. She continues, ‘Mr S [principal] he thought that we had our husbands as a back-up for us so he never gave us that push to teach in high school [which was associated with higher wages]’. The fact that 9 of the 11 interviewees over 60 years of age are still working either part-time or full-time and tutoring children at home is an indication of their precarious financial situation. This precarity needs to be understood in light of their identity as a linguistic and religious minority. 7  Although a few nominated members of the state legislative council have been women, this is the exception rather than the rule.

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In the previous subsections, it has been argued that their employment choices are restricted to (private) minority schools which are not closely bound by government regulations and which do not encourage the formation of unions which can negotiate on behalf of teachers. Therefore, the management’s gendered assumptions often determine pay scales which tend to be much lower than those of government schools and are not accompanied with benefits such as pensions or allowances. As argued earlier, their mobilization of social capital with the community to find employment itself restricts teachers’ ability to negotiate employment conditions. However, earning an income is also associated with a sense of accomplishment and a self-identity as self-reliant women. Relationships Within and Outside the School While private schools discourage unionization, teachers support each other informally. Both Georgiana Alphonso who was diagnosed with cancer and Patricia Hughes who met with an accident were denied long-term medical leave by their schools. Although both found the management’s decision unjust, they did not protest but coped with help from colleagues who shared their workload. Georgiana’s colleagues also collectively took a bank loan to help finance her treatment. Collegiality was a source of emotional and practical support in the face of management’s inflexibility. In the 1970s and 1980s, in certain schools, Anglo-Indian teaches were required to wear only dresses or skirts to underscore their unique identity. The school managements also required headmistresses to monitor the length and fit of the younger teachers’ clothes. Many teachers found this dress code impractical, stating that salwaar kameez or trousers are more convenient when commuting by bus or riding mopeds (common modes of transport in Bangalore). They also felt that their distinctive Western clothes made them vulnerable to harassment while commuting, but negotiations with management on a more flexible dress code took several years. The rule represents one way in which the management (consisting of community leaders) tried to encode Anglo-Indian identity on the bodies of women teachers (see Belliappa 2018, for a detailed discussion). Recent years have seen increasing surveillance of teachers’ work, greater regulation by both management and parents and simultaneous de-skilling of teachers across India (Nandini Manjrekar 2013). In private schools ‘trainers’ (who are often human resource professionals with limited school teaching experience) are hired to ‘professionalize’ teachers. Some

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interviewees cite instances of these trainers suggesting techniques that have little relevance to the realities of the classroom. In addition, instances of parents threatening the school and individual teachers with negative media publicity if their children are unhappy, cause high anxiety and constrain teacher-student relationships. However, relationships with management, parents and students can also be a source of joy and satisfaction. Teachers enthusiastically cite phone calls and emails from former students, invitations to visit and offers of help which create a sense of pride and fulfillment in their careers. Management also occasionally offers support. Francesca Sinha, a former athlete, recalled being invited to Delhi to participate in the opening ceremony of the 1982 Asian Games. Since she had already exhausted her leave for the year, she was touched and delighted when the principal not only granted her leave, but bought her air-ticket, stating that the school was proud of the honour accorded to her. Work Ethic and Professional Identity If you came to my house when I was teaching in … school, [as] my husband would tell me, some bundles of paper would be under the bed, [I was] correcting fifty, sixty papers at a time. Jane Andrews, Aged55 I started a part-time job but I used to bring all the files back home. So F and R [family] used to say, ‘What! You’re on leave, but you’re still working till late in the night!’ Because there’s no time in school. ... So I used to keep everything, all the papers and bring it home to file and arrange it. Patricia Hughes, Aged 62

School teaching involves different activities (such as preparation, teaching, grading, record-keeping). The Right to Education (RTE) Act of 2009 mandates that teacher-student ratios be fixed at 1:30, but most teachers interviewed had taught up to 70 children in a single class before the RTE. With multiple sections in a grade, these numbers increase exponentially and teachers often race to mark students’ work before the next lesson. Keeping up with ‘corrections’ seems almost futile as one set of students’ books or tests is invariably followed by another. Just as women’s household labour is rendered invisible (Oakley 1974/1990) because it is done when other family members are working outside the home, correction and preparation undertaken after school hours remain unaccounted

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for in the idea that ‘teaching is a good career for women with household duties’ and in remuneration. Another form of additional work includes decorating classrooms, creating teaching aids, making costumes for concerts and organizing school events. Oh, the sports meets were organized exactly like the World Olympics. … you have a proper march past, an opening ceremony, a torch relay, an oath taking … The events that follow, the closing ceremony, beating the retreat, everything used to be just perfect. I think the whole of Bangalore used to make its way to our school when there was a sports meet. I’m proud to say I was part of it. Francesca Sinha, Aged 65

Francesca’s pride in organizing the school’s sports meet in a professional manner and her pleasure in the large audience it received is evident from her remarks. While ‘corrections’ (undertaken individually) can be tedious and often alienating, collaborative activities involving the entire school can be enjoyable and rewarding even when they add to teachers’ working hours, especially if they earn the praise of administration and parents. As the opening quotes of this subsection suggest, teachers struggle with the triple burden of domestic work, care work and professional work. We can infer that teachers’ ability to manage their workload is limited not only by their relative disempowerment before the management but also by their own commitment to work and the satisfaction they derive from it. However, this work ethic (also mentioned in the section on the value of an Anglo-Indian teacher) is associated with their identities as ‘professional’ teachers (committed to doing a painstaking job). The following section examines how religious beliefs and attitudes to teaching can simultaneously enhance and limit their professional agency. Religiosity and a Sense of Vocation I feel that sometimes you don’t have to be qualified to be a teacher. It’s… yes… it’s just inborn in you sometimes. It’s a gift which people have sometimes, they may not have the training but they have the ability to teach and reach out to children. Jacqueline D’Souza, Aged 35 I think God wanted me there … that was my destiny. He’s really helped me, though. God has really … and his talent which He has given me, I, er, you know,

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I feel I must serve. So, mine has been a service of my talent.8 What’s the use of keeping it to yourself? You must serve people. Serve. Elizabeth Davis, Aged 76

Despite fairly structured and intensive training as teachers, many of our interviewees seemed to see their abilities as a natural gift and, therefore, one to be expressed in the service of others. Several interviewees claimed that teaching is a vocation rather than a profession. Since the monetary rewards are limited, it is impossible to enjoy the job unless motivated by a higher purpose, whether that purpose is dictated by the Christian ethic of service or a love of children. Elizabeth argues echoing the views of Jackie Kirk’s (2004) interviewees that ‘you must love the children and you must love what you’re doing, then everything will fall into place’. Others, such as Georgiana, speak of teaching as a ‘mission’ and a ‘calling’. Even to become a teacher is a calling. … So it’s a calling for me to be a teacher, it’s a calling to be a nurse, any and everyone cannot be a nurse, you are called to it. It’s your guidance, and when you are called to it, you do your best. That’s the calling. And that’s the belief we have, that God calls us to whatever we are doing, so we do our best. Georgiana Alponso, Aged 66

While teachers from other communities might also construct their professional commitment in religious terms, it must be noted that expressions such as ‘calling’ and ‘service’ (using one’s gifts or talents to serve others) tend to be drawn from a Christian worldview. However, when teaching ability is seen as ‘natural’ or ‘inborn’, it can de-value teacher’s efforts in pre-service and in-service training. The notion of an inborn gift, as Jacqueline suggests, that is employed in serving humanity, creates the conditions for the development of the work ethic of Anglo-Indian teachers described earlier. Constructing teaching in this way makes it personally satisfying but could create conditions for poor remuneration. Thus, 8  In the Biblical Parable of the Bags of Gold, that is, Talents (Matthew 24:14–30), Christ tells the story of a man who gives his three servants bags of gold (the term talent refers to the currency of the period) which two of them invest and one hoards. Those who invest their talents are able to return double the number of bags to their master while the one who hoards his is only able to return what he has received, thus angering the master. This parable could be used to exhort believers to invest their skills and abilities for the good of humanity as the quote from Elizabeth Davis suggests.

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teachers’ sense of dedication itself makes them vulnerable to exploitation, while also empowering them emotionally to cope with the demands of their jobs. Many teachers evince a deep religious faith, with regular church attendance and participation in Bible study and prayer groups. Religious faith could also result in a submission to divine will: personal troubles are seen to be part of a divine plan with some resolution or reward at the end which enables them to come to terms with difficult experiences such as illness, bereavement or professional upheavals. Georgiana, in discussing her cancer, affirmed, ‘I never shed a tear when I had cancer. Because I felt the Lord’s presence taking me on board’. When our interviewees referred to situations in which they did not actively resist authority, they often justified their behaviour by arguing that ‘God knew better’. Discussing her disappointment on being denied an opportunity to train as a nurse, Norma D’Silva argues that it was preordained: I felt quite disappointed. Till now I just look at them and feel—But now I think, er, I made a better teacher, I feel. Because you know, I thought, maybe being a nurse I would not like all that, you know, blood and operations and all, who knows. So I think maybe God knew better. Norma D’Silva, aged 63

Teachers’ strong Christian faith has complex consequences. It can engender resignation to an unhappy situation as part of God’s plan but can also strengthen them to meet professional and personal challenges. Thus, religiosity and faith can be highly empowering because they enable teachers to be resilient in the face of injustice and adversity and also create a sense of higher purpose in their professional lives which elevates the mundane day-to-day duties of the classroom to a mission that serves a higher purpose.

Conclusions In this chapter we have argued that Anglo-Indian women strategically draw on their community identity to create teaching careers in spite of their limited access to higher education. While their choice of career is influenced both by gender and community identity, which limits their ability to negotiate wages and terms of employment, teachers do exercise

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agency in other ways, such as travelling away from their hometowns or working hard to obtain additional qualifications. Their reluctance (with some exceptions) to challenge the authority of male community leaders who play an important role in school boards of Anglo-Indian schools and religious minority schools must be understood in the light of complex and intersecting patriarchies at the level of community, region and nation as well as within the school (Sen 2017). These patriarchies are strengthened by an increasingly threatening majoritarianism in contemporary India. Even if women choose the teaching profession as a result of family and societal norms and expectations, almost universally, they express their strong commitment to it, taking pride in their professional identities. The painstaking manner in which they plan, teach and assess lessons and contribute to school activities testifies to this commitment. Their work ethic enables them to find employment in spite of changing educational norms. Teachers’ work ethic is often strengthened by their religiosity and is expressed using religious terminology. Their faith in divine grace and in prayer enables them to deal with injustice and the challenges of their work and personal life. While the notion of serving humanity for a future heavenly reward might keep them from seeking a fair remuneration, it is also to be recalled that teachers are capable of strategizing. They know that they might earn better salaries in government schools and in the new ‘international schools’ (a few have transferred to the latter) but often choose to remain in the more familiar and safe environs of a minority school surrounded by Anglo-Indian or Indian Christian colleagues. It could be concluded that Anglo-Indian teachers’ professional and personal identities are constructed in close relationship with gender, community and religion and within the patriarchies mentioned above. Their distinctive attire, fluency in English (and lack of fluency in other Indian languages) and other forms of cultural capital mark their Anglo-Indian identity, which acts as a double-edged sword: it cues their professionalism, making them employable in private schools but also limits their access to government jobs. The stereotypes associated with Anglo-Indians (particularly women) also make them vulnerable to harassment in the wider society and limits their social capital to community. This vulnerability tends to restrict them to Anglo-Indian and missionary schools especially during the early part of their careers. But by mobilizing their cultural capital, they also find pathways for career growth within these constraints. While their religiosity can sometimes discourage resistance to the structural inequality that they experience as minority women and as teachers, it often

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strengthens their resilience in the face of professional and personal challenges. In spite of all the constraints that they experience, AngloIndian teachers creatively mobilize different aspects of their identity to create rewarding careers within Bangalore’s changing schooling market. Acknowledgements  We are grateful to Dr. Geetha Narayanan and Dr. Indira Chowdhury at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru, for their advice at the early stages of the project. Thanks are also due to Ajai Narendran for generous help with sourcing literature and to Prof Robyn Andrews and Prof Merin Simi Raj for their encouragement and support. Fieldwork was undertaken with funding from the Swedish Arts Research Council under the Mediating Modernity Project in 2013. We thank artists and scholars in Sweden and India who were involved in this project for their perceptive comments on our work. Last but not the least, the research would not have occurred without the input of the Anglo-Indian community, and especially that of our interviewees, who trusted us with their stories.

References Acker, S. (1999). Realities of Teachers’ Work: Never a Dull Moment. A&C Black. Andrews, R. (2005). Being Anglo-Indian: Practices and Stories from Calcutta (PhD Thesis). Massey University, New Zealand. Andrews, R. (2010). Christianity as an Indian Religion: The Anglo-Indian Experience. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 25(2), 173–188. Anthony, F. (1964/2007). Britain’s Betrayal in India: The Story of the Anglo-­ Indian Community. The Simon Wallenberg Press. Apple, M. W. (1988). Teachers and Texts: A Political Economy of Class and Gender Relations in Education. Routledge. Awaya, T. (2003). Becoming a Female Citizen in Colonial Kerala. In A. Tanabe & Y.  Tokita-Tanabe (Eds.), Perspectives from Asian and the Pacific. Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press. Batra, P. (2005). Voice and Agency of Teachers: Missing Link in National Curriculum Framework. Economic and Political Weekly, 4347–4356. Belliappa, J. L. (2013). Gender, Class and Reflexive Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan. Belliappa, J.  L. (2018). Gender, Community Identity and Norms Regarding Women’s Sartorial Choices: Responding to Designer Sabyasachi’s Remarks on the Sari from an Anglo-Indian Perspective. International Journal of Anglo-­ Indian Studies, 18(1), 3–19. Bible New International Version. (2011). Retrieved from BibleGateway.com. www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIVBible/#booklist.

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Blunt, A. (2002). Land of Our Mothers’: Home, Identity, and Nationality for Anglo-Indians in British India, 1919–1947.’ History Workshop Journal, 54 (1):49–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and Diaspora. Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. John Wiley & Sons. Caplan, P. (1985). Class and Gender: Women in India. Tavistock. Caplan, L. (2000). Iconographies of Anglo-Indian Women: Gender Constructs and Contrasts in a Changing Society. Modern Asian Studies, 34(4), 863–892. Caplan, L. (2001). Children of Colonialism. London: Berg. Chakravarti, U. (1989). Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, Nationalism and a Script for the Past. In K. Sangari & S. Vaid (Eds.), Recasting Women: Essays on Colonial History. Kali for Women. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2016). The Professional Lives of Anglo-Indian Women in the Twilight of the Empire. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 16(2), 3–29 Chatterjee, P. (1989). The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question. In K. Sangari & S. Vaid (Eds.), Recasting Women: Essays on Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Chew, D. (2010). Will the Real Anglo-Indian Woman Please Stand Up? In M. Deefholts & S. Deefholts (Eds.), Women of Anglo-India: Tales and Memoirs (pp. 187–198). Monroe Township, NJ: CTR Inc. Publishing. deSouza, S., & Belliappa, J.  L. (2018). The Ethics of Protecting Narrators: Understanding the Positions and Self-Representational Desires of Anglo-­ Indian School Teachers. In F. Iacovetta, K. Srigley, & S. Zembrzycki (Eds.), Beyond Women’s Words. Routledge. Gangoli, G. (2005). Sexuality, Sensuality and Belonging: Representations of the ‘Anglo-Indian’ and the ‘Western’ Woman in Hindi Cinema (pp.  143–162). Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema Through a Transnational Lens. Indumathi, S., & Vijaysimha, I. (2011). Women in Teaching: Impossible Fiction or Fulfilling Lives? CESI Conference, Hyderabad 12–14 November 2011. Khurshid, A. (2017). Does Education Empower Women? The Regulated Empowerment of Parhi Likhi Women in Pakistan. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 48(3), 252–268. Kirk, J. (2004). Impossible Fictions: The Lived Experiences of Women Teachers in Karachi. Comparative Education Review, 48(4), 374–395. Letherby, G. (2004). Quoting and Counting: An Autobiographical Response to Oakley. Sociology, 38(1), 175–189. Manjrekar, N. (2013). Women School Teachers in New Times: Some Preliminary Reflections. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 20(2), 335–356. Muthiah, S., & MacLure, H. (2013). The Anglo-Indians—A 500-Year History. Niyogi Books. Oakley, A. (1974/1990). Housewife. Penguin Books.

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Otto, B.  H. (2010). Anglo-Indian Women and the Negotiation of Community Identity: 1920–47. In M. Deefholts & S. Deefholts (Eds.), Women of Anglo-­ India: Tales and Memoirs (pp.  199–209). Monroe Township, NJ: CTR Inc. Publishing. Plummer, K. (2001). Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to Critical Humanism. Sage. Ramachandran, V. (2016). The Position of Teachers in Our Education System 1. Learning Curve, 25, 50–52. Sen, S. (2017). Anglo-Indian Women in Transition: Pride Prejudice and Predicament. Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 13

A Queer Encounter with Anglo-Indians: Some Thoughts on National (Non) Belonging Carolyn D’Cruz

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture Is like a tree without roots —Marcus Garvey The question is not as for Hamlet, to be or not to be, But to belong or not belong —Hannah Arendt citing Proust The belonging you seek is not behind you It’s ahead —Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Eeee-nok Paarhl! To my five-year-old ears, he sounded like the bogey man, or a rogue, as my family would say. Packed into the living area of my family’s two-bedroom terraced house in London’s East End, I was

C. D’Cruz (*) La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_13

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eavesdropping on the adults’ conversation about this man telling ‘coloureds’ to ‘Go back to their own country’. Sharing the busy borough with white working classes, my parents were trying to make a new home after emigrating from India. Immigration was a hotly debated issue during British election campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s. Oblivious to the Labour Government’s Race Relations Act 1968, which had prompted conservative politician Enoch Powell’s famous Rivers of Blood speech— the speech that suggested ‘coloureds’ be sent back to where they came from—my mind was turned to a more immediate calculation: what was my own country? I was born in London, but my parents and brother were born in India. Would they be returned without me? I did a head count of my other cousins born in England. Even if we all stayed, we would be without parents. If we were sent back with our parents, I would be living in that ‘primitive’ country for which I had yet to develop any positive view or any acknowledged affinity. My calculations were troubled. As a child trying to make sense of Powell’s provocation, I could see that I did not belong to the country of my birth. This was the same country whose Empire had colonised my mind to see my genetic heritage as contaminated, through ‘common sense’, by an inferior race. I say contaminated, as it was made clear to us as children that we were different from other Indians. As Anglo-Indians, we were supposedly more like the British: we spoke English, practised Christianity and wore Western clothes. Our lived experiences in the East End of London told a different story. Whatever our parents may have claimed regarding our European ancestry, we were certainly not getting read as belonging to the Mother country. As a child growing up with racism, disidentifying with the Indian part of my heritage felt natural. I emphasised the Anglo in the hyphenated classification but could not shake the feeling of being dislocated and not properly belonging to a nation. Today, I am thankful for that sense of unbelonging and annoyed at my disidentification. Feeling displaced about national belonging has saved me from the dark side of nationalism—in its British, Australian (where I live now) and Indian manifestations. Disidentification allows me to think of other identities before my own, but it has taken many decades for this door to open. Disidentifying with my own ‘official’ racial classification has set me back in learning the history and specific political responsibility that Anglo-­ Indians had carried between 1952 and 2020 in India’s constitution. Up until the beginning of 2020, India’s constitution had granted Anglo-­ Indians minority provisions such as reserved seats in electorates and its

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own representatives in the Lok Shaba (Lower house) of India’s parliament; the constitution defined Anglo-Indian identity in Article 366 section two. Neither inside nor outside the British partition of Muslims and Hindus into the nations of Pakistan and India, and without a native state of its own, Anglo-Indians had taken on a special minority status. The racial classification, rather than religious one (Christian), allowed the illusion that Anglo-Indians could function as the impartial and secular national subject of India’s growth as a democracy. However, in order to maintain such a relationship to India as a nation, Anglo-Indians had to maintain their ever-dwindling numbers as an endogamous minority community. Even though the amended constitution no longer reserves seats for Anglo-­ Indians, there is still much to think about the difference between political representation on behalf of a minority’s interests and political representation under the heading of a nation. By reflecting on a recent Anglo-Indian reunion held in Chennai, 2019, this paper situates itself in the hyphen between the Anglo and Indian to consider how tensions between community and nation might look beyond its own identity issues to think about minority rights within democratic projects in general. To push thought on the status of a community without a native state of its own, I compare the condition of Anglo-Indians (in both Indian and diasporic forms) to the LGBTIQA+1 (queer) community (particularly in Western contexts). Sexuality and gender non-conformity regarding Anglo-Indian heritage is presently an understudied area, so the comparison in this paper hopes to open spaces for shared questions and methods for dealing with minorities. Furthermore, putting queer concerns in dialogue with Anglo-­ Indian ones builds a bridge for a long overdue encounter that is too often taboo within the traditionally Christian circles of this racial minority. *** Driving into the grounds for the 11th world Anglo-Indian reunion in January 2019, I would have thought that St George’s Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School and its attached church were no longer operative if I wasn’t told otherwise. The red brick buildings looked 1  Nicknamed the alphabet soup for its unwieldy pronouncability, LGBTIQA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and intersexual. The plus sign indicates those identities that remain unnamed in the acronym. My own preference is to use queer, and so will refer to this umbrella term in most of the paper.

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desolate against high piles of rubble dotted about the vacant space of the area Wikipedia registers at 21 acres (Wikipedia, good for some facts, also states St George’s schools have over 1500 students). I was a last-minute travel companion for my brother, who was to speak at one of the reunion’s events. I was going as a curious observer, not expecting to leave as a troubled heir to Anglo-Indians’ position within the remains of British colonialism and the rise of Indian nationalism. As I was taking a photo of the school building, I heard a familiar voice call out my name. It was my Aunty J, who had just left the special church service for the reunion. My mum had told us that my uncle P and aunty J would be travelling to this event from Perth, Western Australia. I had rehearsed an imaginary speech to my uncle, outlining my complaints of what it had been like growing up with the sexist and homophobic jokes that regularly featured at family occasions. Upon seeing him, my mid-50s self reverted to respectable childhood family protocol and ‘wished’ him with a kiss on the cheek. My auntie and uncle walked with us toward registration for the meet and greet session. They were there for community reunion; my brother and I more so for the political, scholarly and literary events. The inside of the tent resembled the arrangements of a wedding reception: about 30 or 40 round tables to seat about eight people each, draped in white tablecloths with matching chairs that had big red bows tied to the back of them. The red decorations above reminded me of the way my mum used to hang tinsel and foiled hangings on our own ceilings at Christmas. The posts of the stage were painted a pale blue, which was just as well, as royal blue would have blended too neatly with the red and white to remind us of the Union Jack. The front of the stage was filled with yellow, pink, orange, white and red, gerberas with greenery. Orange and green arrangements decorated the front of the pulpits on either side of the four chairs placed in front of the white banner welcoming us to the world-­ wide reunion. Orange, green and white: I couldn’t help recalling how we had learned to think of dhal, greens and rice as a mnemonic device for the colours of India’s flag. The banner announced the chief guest: His Excellency, Thiru Bhanwarilal Purohit, the Honourable Governor of Tamil Nadu. If this occasion felt out of joint to me, it was not due to the great organisational skills of the convenors of the reunion like the generous and meticulous Harry MacLure. In my own experiences of Anglo-Indian dances and family gatherings, organisation always has been first rate. The

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disjointedness comes from the dislocated identity of the Anglo-Indian community itself: there is always something a little bit off between the way the community tries to locate itself within national narratives. As I watched about two dozen young people with maroon berets and full white military regalia line the dusty red carpet to salute the dignitaries and Bishop as they entered the stage, the lumbering sound of the bugle and military drums floated into the tent like an anachronistic jangle from the ruins of British Empire. The security guards sported rifles. As the luminaries took their seats, the difference between those on the stage and those on the floor captured the discord between nation and community again. As necessary as the protocols for governmental pomp and ceremony are, they were no substitute for the binding atmosphere that the couple of a traditional Anglo-Indian wedding provides to unite all family and friends in attendance. We stood for the national anthem with varying levels of volume and gusto; I knew the title and first three words, Jana Gana Mana, from nights in which my drunken uncles would burst into song at family parties in my childhood. The speeches were filled with contributions Anglo-Indians have made to India. The Bishop read a list of professions in which Anglo-­ Indians were prominent with the same slow and carefully enunciated cadence in which my Dad used to read me stories and pause between words when reading a list: railways … postal-telegraph … police and customs … education … export/imports … shipping … tea, coffee and tobacco plantations … coal and goldfields. The Bishop went on to speak of Anglo-Indians in post-independence, where he named men as serving in the army, air force and navy, and women as contributing to education and excellence in secretarial positions. The governor, dressed in a grey Nehru suit, was once a BJP member before quitting and joining the Indian National Congress; he told us that he had studied in Nagpur under the tutelage of Anglo-Indians who made up 80% of the teachers at his high school, as a way of personalising his admiration for the community. Reminding the audience that the term Anglo-Indian originally referred to British domiciles in India, occupying prestigious positions—a claim that betrays the fact that some of these domiciles became destitute and threatened imperial prestige (Ballhatchet 1980) the Governor went on to note the definition of Anglo-Indians in the Indian constitution. I was to hear this definition in almost every event I attended. This was followed in the next breath by noting this minority community was at the time the only one guaranteed two MPs in the Lok

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Sabha (the constitutional amendment to stop this was passed in January 2020). There are 14 states in India, of which Anglo-Indians previously had single members in legislative assemblies. The guarantee of representation, for a racialised group whose future as an endogamous community was dwindling, became my obsession during the conference. Like the Bishop before him, the Governor recites a litany of Anglo-­ Indian achievements with a focus on their contributions to the nation. He moved seamlessly from praising the Anglo-Indian battalion in World War II (under the British Army) to commending those enlisted post-­ independence in the 1965 war between India and Pakistan. The reverence for the military, and the ease in which national allegiance can be switched from one to another to kill and die for, disturbs me. I think of recent decades in which lesbian, gay and trans folk lobbied the US government to allow them to be openly out about their sexuality and gender identity while serving in the military. For those disadvantaged in wider society by class, race, sexuality and gender, the military can offer an education and job security. A steady job, as my family would say, is one of life’s top priorities. With the acquired middle-class privileges of my education and my political life experience, I identify with a less mainstream queer heritage, which does not align itself to the interests of the nation-state’s entanglements with capitalism, war and imperialism. This queer heritage sides with the dispossessed and builds solidarity with other minorities and marginal people who have fallen below the radar of democratic inclusion. This kind of heritage is mindful of how the entanglement of Anglo-Indians with British Empire allowed many to migrate to the stolen lands of Aboriginal people in what is now called Australia. I wonder if there is another Anglo-­ Indian history that has had political alliances with the disadvantaged rather than the privileged. While Anglo Indians may have to dig deeper to find such a history, queer folk have to work harder for stories of inheritance. Values and norms for living are not passed down through generations via one’s family of origin. The moral compass of religion, folklore, expected structures for navigating love, relationships and family, and even one’s expected profession are passed down in Anglo-Indian families with the presumption of heterosexuality; after coming out to one’s self as queer, the task of belonging to a community is usually not something one grows up with. Inheritance for queers usually involves accessing stories that rarely come from the life experiences of one’s grandmother’s tales.

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The inheritance of family and community does not always come with the inheritance of political allegiances. In my Anglo-Indian upbringing, we were taught to be apolitical. This is almost the opposite of the inheritance I had found in philosophy when I studied at university and met political activists. When studying the French thinker, Jacques Derrida (1994), I became enthralled with his reflections on inheritance and political solidarity with the marginal when he reckons with the legacies of Marxism. He points out that taking responsibility for one’s heritage, such as what happens in the name of a particular community (like Anglo-­ Indians, or queers), is always a difficult task fraught with competing and often incompatible goals. There are always choices over what principles and imperatives are taken forward or discarded. There is no predicting in what form a community will manifest; and there is no telling what political purpose will be served through that community’s relationship to the nation. To date, Uther Charlton-Stevens (2017) offers the most detailed account of what other threads of dissenting perspectives competed with Anglo-Indian leader, Frank Anthony’s project to situate this minority group as ‘Indian by nationality, Anglo-Indian by community’. Throughout the World Anglo-Indian Reunion, the tension between the community’s traits and traditions in the larger narrative of national inheritance seems split between those gathering to reminisce and enjoy festivities with family and friends, and those who have a greater investment in how Anglo-­ Indians are represented—in both political and cultural spaces—to the rest of the world. This reminds me of the difference between queers who insist their identities are not political and those of us committed to showing how they cannot be otherwise. These differences are not mutually exclusive. In both cases, there are points of intersection between community desire and matters relating to national and cultural representation; what interests me is the hyphen between them and the hyphen between the two nations that I do not wholly fit. *** The hyphen between the Anglo and Indian is supposed to join the two separate ‘races’, but I grew up without feeling I belonged to either of the nations associated with these classifications. For most of my life, the hyphen operated like a minus sign: neither Anglo nor Indian. The reunion, however, pricked my conscience to ask what kind of political responsibility might emerge if I took the hyphen itself—neither separable nor

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inseparable from and between the two marked identities—more seriously. As the reunion went on, I kept wondering what kind of role this historically designated minority in India—which I have only ever known through the diasporic experience—could still play in current debates regarding Indian, and the international future of, democracy. Is there something politically constructive to offer democratic governance when one does not traditionally belong to one nation? As the reunion went on, I learned that others had asked this question many times in parliament, history books and archival documentation before me. After attending one of the sessions on the future of Anglo-Indians, I began to think about the hyphen—not just between the Anglo and Indian but between minority communities and nationalism (as opposed to the nation) more generally—through bringing together what I would have hitherto thought of as antithetical communities to one another due to my own lived experience in both. It had not occurred to me before the conference to compare issues that have faced the Anglo-Indian community to the LGBTIQA+ community. The evolution of each of these communities, though disparate at first sight, have faced similar conundrums with identity, community and nation when navigating minority rights and representation that are worth comparing for their mutual instructiveness. Both communities have struggled with the politics of naming and drawing the boundaries of belonging within official classifications. Both have been caught up in the broader scientific obsessions of nineteenth- and twentieth-­ century eugenics and assumptions regarding inherent defects in character. Both feature members of community who have climbed societal hierarchies depending on their ability to pass in the mainstream. To my surprise, sections of both communities have had members seek geographical spaces on which to settle a homeland. And as minority communities who have been traditionally left out of canonical knowledge and official national narratives, both are invested in mining archives, preserving knowledge and maintaining a distinctive cultural voice from which to claim that each group is indeed a ‘people with a history’.2 Within the politics of naming, it is too easy to forget or neglect the fact that neither community had an official classification (in the legal sense) to 2  In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt ([1951] 1976) borrows the phrase ‘people without a history’ from Otto Bauer to refer to the way in which minor cultures would gather evidence of their historical consciousness through preserving their languages and literary traditions as a means of claiming a national consciousness.

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begin with, even though the trajectories of their becoming are quite different. As is well known within queer theory, prior to around 1870 (McIntosh 1968; Foucault [1976] 1984), sexual acts and behaviours that took place between people considered to be of the same sex did not have an identity label. The typing of the homosexual into an identity (equated with the sodomite) emerged in the European world during the same time in which several disciplines, striving to match the rules and procedures for validating scientific methods, became fixated with the idea of equilibrium (Foucault [1966] 1970). This same typing of the homosexual and consequent criminalisation was imported into India through the British Raj. Imperatives to establish the constitution of their nations (in all its senses) and monitor and regulate their populations according to ideals of their ‘imaginary community’ (as Benedict Anderson coined the term to describe nations in 1983) set and conditioned the infrastructures through which governments became invested in types of people. Such typing was caught up in the regimes of truth built on validation of scientific methods and its focus of systems, classifications and equilibrium. Equilibrium—the state of balance reached through the pull of opposing forces—became a key concept not only in sciences like physics, chemistry and biology but also social sciences like economics and linguistics. The scientific obsession with equilibrium focussed on those who were having too much or too little sex; those who were reproducing too much or too little of favoured types of populations (in terms of class, caste and race); and those who would be prone to reproducing what was deemed physically and mentally unruly and unhealthy types of people. Sexually and gender diverse people and those of mixed race were two groups that threatened or disturbed the preferred governmental practices for maintaining the imagined equilibrium of national populations (Foucault [1966] 1970; Ballhatchet 1980). Medical and psychiatric professionals became the experts on what constituted the balance of a healthy gender identity and sexuality, which spilled into the naming of gender and sexual deviants. The present-day alphabet soup including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual identities is a product of this shared history. In this sense, the narrative that gay politics is becoming more inclusive by adding letters of the alphabet to the acronym is historically wrong; it is more like a reversion to the pathological grouping together of those who deviated from the norms of gender identity and sexual behaviours. In contrast to the medical typing of LGBTIQA+ people, naming Anglo-Indians as the organising principle

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from which to deal with mixed raced peoples borne through colonial relations and migration patterns was a battle with governmental and military administrators (D’Cruz 2006; Charlton-Stevens 2017). In both cases, however, in line with Foucault’s observations on marginal sexualities, these minority groups began to use the language and terms put upon them by authorities with the aim of lobbying for rights and building community cohesion and pride on behalf of their own interests. In the case of Anglo-Indians, the term eventually became enshrined in the Indian constitution, having the effect of reducing all other European differences to the dominant practices of Anglophile Christians. It is not hard to imagine an alphabet soup that nominally re-connects Anglo-Indians to those who have a mixed European and Indian ancestry that is not British. The rival trading companies and colonial interests from Portugal, France, Denmark and the Netherlands produced their own progeny of mixed-race people. There are even Anglo-Indians with German surnames. All these differences have been homogenised into the one term that privileges the Anglo (just as in some periods and contexts, the term gay liberation stood for all now marked in the alphabet soup). However, with shrinking numbers of this endogamous community in India, and its diaspora whose present generations identify more with the nationality their families have migrated to, it is too late for such reclassifications or a call to return to monikers such as what was sometimes pejoratively marked as Eurasian. Or is it? The politics of naming nevertheless belies what was dubbed in the official definition of Article 366 (2) of the Indian Constitution: ‘an Anglo-­ Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only’. The hierarchical reinforcement of both British Empire and patriarchal power relations cannot go unnoticed, where current reflections on the community today can better serve the interests of the disadvantaged if the historically prioritised voices were not fixated on maintaining certain privileges and presenting the community in the most assimilationist and normative terms of the British Raj’s legacies. If not in name, I wonder what kind of political and community allegiances may be formed if Anglo-Indian history was approached in terms that resurrected some of the ‘subjugated knowledges’ (Foucault [1976] 1980) of dissident voices. Just as there are queer people who contest rather than seek assimilation

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within the liberal paradigms of nationalism and modernity, I wonder what kind of heritage of Anglo-Indians may be retrieved if research and responsibilities concerning politico-cultural representations of minorities followed the tracks not taken and canonised in official accounts of knowledge and history. Of course, the pull toward an assimilationist and respectable politics is strong when cultural representations reinforce stereotypes that cast minority groups as inherently flawed in character rather than historically positioned as marginal. It is common practice for both LGBTIQA+ and Anglo-Indian communities to lay claim to famous forebears, build their own canon of literature and seek reconstructions of history that tell a more positive story about their social status and struggle for community and status within the nation. Both communities have attempted to censor or ban films that they see as reinforcing disparaging representations (Hilton-­ Morrow and Battles 2015; Faassen 2005). Members of both communities have sought to correct stereotypes by calling for and cultivating their own ideas of more accurate and positive representations. Such desires, however, rest on at least two erroneous assumptions about how stereotypes work particularly for minority or marginalised communities. First, it is empirically wrong to presume that no members of each community fit the stereotype. In the LGBTIQA+ community, we will find flamboyant, gender bending, promiscuous people (thank goodness!). Similarly, there are Anglo-Indians who like to get drunk, play the ‘big shot’ or become ‘wasters’ (D’Cruz 2006). This is not to discount the effect or damage such stereotypes can have on individuals who are concerned with the image of each community; it is rather to say that buying into the logic of presenting a more accurate or respectable portrayal will be doomed to fail. This failure is related to the second flaw in trying to correct stereotypes. Within the diversity of each community, how does one proceed to choose from which members to present a more accurate picture? More importantly, what relations of power are obscured when the drive to present a more respectable image is privileged? As tempting as it may be to counter stereotypes, especially those which circulate as if there were inherent character defects within Anglo Indians and LGBTIQA+ folks as types of people, the desire to be read as respectable is tied to assimilating into the nation-state—whichever country that may be for both communities. The very nature of minority groups places them as either excluded or marginalised within the nation-state, and this usually means their rights as citizens can be impeded or hard to secure.

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The diversity of each community is necessarily collapsed into homogeneity when lobbying for state rights. What becomes enshrined in the state follows the agendas of those with most access to and literacy within the terms of governmental institutions. As Charlton-Stevens (2017, p. 35) describes it, Anglo-Indian became chosen as the term to use in the 1911 Census of India as one ‘which, having previously applied to colonial Britons of long residence in India, possessed greater cultural and social capital, signified association with the group to which they aspired to belong, and facilitated strategies of boundary blurring between them and superordinate Britons’. Similarly, the international trend to lobby for what came to be known as marriage equality replaced terms such as gay marriage (lesbian and queer were never given their own currency) and even same sex marriage, in a way that offered bland linguistic assimilation to the presumed neutrality of the nation-state. State inclusion offers the privilege of passing into mainstream society; on the other side of such passing lie divisions within the minority community and the forging of de facto alliances with whomever are deemed subordinate or enemies of the nation-state. I will return to the issue of community alliances toward others rather than the state near the end of this chapter. For now, I will follow the question of passing within the mainstream as a lever from which to think of its other side: the desire for a geographically bounded space from which to settle a self-identified community. At this point, I note that comparisons with LGBTIQA+ people might be better thought through India’s own gender diverse communities, though the quest for an autonomous homeland still occupies a very small number of Western gay and lesbian activists. While there is a large body of writing concerned with racial passing into whiteness and gay and lesbian passing into straight society, the desire to do so decreases the more each community feels greater security within its own boundaries, or the more the community feels well assimilated into the mainstream. However, where gender passing is concerned, the historical specificity that distinguishes the Indian from Western contexts is crucial for noting a kind of ideological imperialism inculcating the LGBTIQA+ nomenclature that dominates the international policies and agendas regarding sexuality and gender diversity. In Western contexts, there is a long and complicated history of some transgender people’s journeys in passing in the opposite sex category to what they were assigned at birth (Stryker 2008). More recently, there is an ever-expanding vocabulary to enable those who do not want to pass in either sex category to call themselves non-binary or genderqueer among other things. India has a much

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longer history with nomenclature that exceeds the gender binary and is not reducible to the Western terms of transgender and intersex. For generations, the Kinnar and Hijra are two of the more well-known names for those who have formed communities around their identities as gender diverse people. Some of these communities pass on sacred powers and shamanistic practices connected to the Indigenous belief systems of the land in which they reside (see Parker 2018). At the same time, members of these communities experience disproportionate levels of violence and discrimination. Forming intentional communities is one way of dealing with marginality; the status of Kinnar and cognate gender diverse people in India and Pakistan have been granted some official recognition within the state machinery, though the stigma individuals experience still make it difficult for them to identify as such in matters such as voting (Goyal 2017). Unlike more accessible accounts of racial and gender and sexuality passing, the Kinnar, Hijra and others have a strong tradition of not passing. In this they share an alliance with those sections of the gender diverse and queer communities who take pride in their deviance rather than trying to pass in the mainstream (Mattilda 2006). To my knowledge, ‘third sex’ communities in India have not sought to officially establish a separate state territory, which may have something to do with the fact these communities, especially those who still perform sacred duties, are indigenous to the areas in which they live; they have also had to withstand and navigate their stigmatised status through changing empires from the Mughals to the British (Taparia 2011). Pursuit of state territory has occupied Anglo-Indian agendas on occasion and still occupies the Western Gay Homeland Foundation (http:// gayhomeland.org/index.html) at present. Among the places Anglo-­ Indians attempted to establish a homeland are Uttaranchal in the Himalayas, the Andaman Islands and McCluskieganj in modern Jharkhand (Charlton-Stevens 2017). Aside from the present gay homeland website, gay activists in Australia had once tried to lay claim to the islands of Cato in the Coral sea. On a more organic level, both Anglo-Indian and LGBTIQA+ communities have established zones in which clusters of their members live, and/or frequent in concentrated numbers, such as Perambur, Chennai, in the case of the former and the Castro in San Francisco in the latter. While the attraction to live amongst one’s own kind is understandable, the actuality of doing so necessarily binds that community to the logic of policing definitions of who belongs to the group identity. The political aims and social forms of building community cohesion

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accompany the question of what consequences may follow determining the grounds for belonging that aims to preserve a future identity. My argument upon which I will close is that the problems encountered in defining identity for these minor communities, and becoming bound to a numbers game and the policing of boundaries, can give us insight into seeking a politics that steers away from nationalism, the nation-state and drives for inclusion and assimilation. I read the failure of acquiring a designated state territory as a success in the interests of both groups avoiding another form of settler colonialism; for wherever territory is claimed by displacing those who are indigenous to the area, settlement is occupation (Wolfe 1999; Moreton-Robinson 2015). As nationalisms have been on the rise, and as more LGBTIQA+ folk living in Western democracies have begun to identify with what Jasbir Puar (2007) calls homonationalist agendas that align with military interests and consumer capitalism, the question of how marginal communities navigate their minority status and rights cannot be divorced from broader ethical questions regarding the kind of political world we want to cultivate through our behaviour as citizens and our aspirations as minor communities. The particular minority status that Anglo-Indians and LGBTIQA+ folk as disparate groups share is one that is not bound to specific soil or singular nation. Viewed from a non-nationalist, internationalist, perspective that sides with the disadvantaged against the powers that be, this is a good thing. *** I found possibilities for thinking this through in one of the World Anglo-­ Indian Reunion conference sessions. In the symposium, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Gopalkrishna Gandhi (2019)—Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, retired Indian Administrative Service diplomat and once Governor of West Bengal (2004–2009)—took the stand. I approach the end of this paper by recounting much of his speech, because of what it gives us to think about, perhaps beyond his own intentions: the relationship between not belonging and navigating non-allegiance to a nation. Gandhi began his speech by underscoring how important the reunion’s gathering is to India’s present moment, noting that his audience might not even be aware of the significant role Anglo-Indians have played in India’s history. Gandhi argued that the writing of India’s constitution marked the instant of the ‘democratic unfurling of India’. He claimed that what has remained almost

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‘unnoticed by commentators and unflagged by political analysts’3 is the worth that the provision of two seats in India’s parliament and representation in State Legislative Assemblies had granted to Anglo-Indians. Such representation, I gather from his argument, had played a crucial role in maintaining a certain spirit of the Republic of India. Notably, it was not the numerical status as a minority that grounded the rationale for such a provision. Reserved seats for Anglo-Indians were based on their ‘representativeness and inclusiveness of the political structure of a republic’, not their minority status as a community. The provision of two Anglo-Indian parliamentarians, according to Gandhi, was to bring no advantage in votes for either of the major parties who would stand for election. For Gandhi, the provision was not based on furthering the minority interests of Anglo-­ Indians, but rather on instituting a structure that could ensure the longevity of what he calls the republican spirit. It is not often that I pause to reflect on the distinction between a republic and democracy, so Gopal Gandhi’s speech brought to my attention questions about governance that can be instructive for moving beyond the assimilationist logic of democratic inclusion. Before elaborating on the distinction, Gandhi stated that most political science textbooks will tell you that democracies are more bound to the principle of majority rule, while republics choose representatives that are bound by their constitutions to protect minority rights against what might turn into the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America ([1835] 2003) is the most oft-cited book that deals with the question of the ‘Tyranny of the Majority’—the problem of how to protect the rights of minorities when the will of the majority does not represent their interests. However, confusion between the two forms of governance seems to have been evident in the late eighteenth century (Shoemaker 1966) as it is today (Volokh 2016). According to Gandhi, democracies operate on the principle of acquiring a political majority (not a community, religious, ethnic or caste majority) to take a turn at governance. Such a majority is supposed to be arrived at through an intellectual consideration of a political position. He then asked, but what about a republic? What principles are adhered to when deciding upon whom should govern and how governance ought to take 3  All quotations in these paragraphs, unless otherwise stated, are taken directly from Gandhi’s speech, which can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHMD vRap7D8&list=PLsGWecOaU6huMlWdLwi2e5To4asZ2A4R-&index=14&t=0s.

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place? Gandhi reminded us that a republic is ‘impervious to majority and minority’ votes in order to not only abide by the principle of giving equal space to every person who is part of that republic but to also erase vulnerabilities where majority rule does not cater to those who are in a minority. If someone were to tell me before this speech that I would become taken by a principle relating the ideal of a republic, I would not have believed them. Throughout this paper, I have underscored that my political alliances lie less within the nation-state and more with what falls below or exceeds the parameters of its assimilationist logic. Given my own bias that comes from the United States’ division between democrats and republicans, I was ill prepared to hear myself favouring what Gandhi presented to us as a principle underpinning the ideals of a republic in contrast to democracy as forms of governance (rather than sloganeering political parties). Thinking of myself as a person who works for extending democracies, I was surprised at how the principle to which Gandhi spoke in terms of a republic was more readily aligned with my own sympathies with the dislocated and un-belonging. Gandhi’s speech ended with a reflection on the Latin term etcetera. Etcetera translates to ‘and the others’, or, as Gandhi put it, ‘to the rest’. He noted that the principles of democracy are structured such that all that is contained within must be first dealt with before any thought of the etcetera. According to the principles of a republic, he contends, the rest or the others come first. In a republic, the rest become the main. In addition to the others coming first, Gandhi pairs etcetera with another Latin term: desunt. Desunt translates to that which is vanished, disappeared or missing. The retired diplomat put these two terms together to mark the role of Anglo-Indians as the etcetera desunt of the political imagination for India. Such a role ought to have an eye for the others that are missing from centre stage. Whether vulnerable through status or numerical fragility, the privileging of the etcetera desunt gears attention to cultivating a context in which ‘the others’ may be heard on equal footing with a political majority. Whether Gandhi is right in distinguishing a democracy from a republic in this way is a matter I am prepared to suspend for now. For the spirit that he captures in the etcetera desunt resonates with the spirit of the other heritage I alluded to earlier in the chapter regarding the LGBTIQA+ social movements that are not easily accessible through official history books of national narratives. There is a spirit in all of the threads of the LGBTIQA+ acronym that have cultivated solidarity and sided with ‘the others’ in history—Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination;

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anti-sexist and anti-racist struggles; struggles against poverty and homelessness; and, if I may add to this short list in the spirit of Gandhi’s terms, struggles for the etcetera desunt. When minority communities are given a voice, as had been the case with Anglo-Indians in India’s parliament, they are given a responsibility to keep an ear open for those others whose interests may not be well represented in the main. Having lost the reserved seats now, I am keen to take up Gandhi’s appeal for somebody to research what had been taken up between 1952 and 2020 in that role. I am keen to find those other tracks of history—the narrative of the rest, which thus far might not have been captured by the official custodians of Anglo-­ Indian politics and history. This task would be less concerned with compiling a list of contributions that Anglo-Indians have made to the nation through the logic of assimilation. My eye is more interested in looking for ties with other others, who do not automatically belong to the nation. And if I could travel back in time 50 years, and speak to my five-year-old self, I would advise her that the Anglo-Indian disposition of not belonging to a nation can be a gift; for those who do belong can build a greater capacity to attend to the etcetera desunt.

References Anderson, B. (1983). Imaginary Communities. London: Verso. Arendt, H. ([1951] 1976). The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Inc Ballhatchet, K. (1980). Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics, 1793–1905. New York: St Martin’s Press. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2017). Anglo-Indians and Minority Politics in South Asia: Race, Boundary Making and Communal Nationalism. London: Routledge. D’Cruz, G. (2006). Midnight’s Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Post/Colonial Literature. Bern: Peter Lang. Derrida, J. (1994). Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, The Work of Mourning, and The New International (P.  Kamuf, Trans.). New  York and London: Routledge. Faassen, M. (2005). Imposed Identities: A Comparative Analysis of the Formation of the Anglo-Indian and the Coloured Identities. Retrieved from http://home. alphalink.com.au/~agilbert/faassen.html#_edn6. Foucault, M. ([1966] 1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (Unidentified Collective, Trans.). London: Tavistock. Foucault, M. ([1976] 1980). Two Lectures (C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, & K. Soper, Trans.). In C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Essays and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (pp. 78–108). Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press.

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Foucault, M. ([1976] 1984). The History of Sexuality, Vol 1. An Introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gandhi, G. (2019). Speech Delivered at Yesterday, Today Tomorrow, Symposium on January 10, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=pHMDvRap7D8&list=PLsGWecOaU6huMlWdLwi2e5To4asZ 2A4R-­&index=14&t=0s. Goyal, D. (2017, February 6). I Voted Because Not Being Male or Female Can’t Take Away My Right. The Indian Express. Retrieved from https://indianexpress.com/elections/punjab-­assembly-­elections-­2017/i-­voted-­because-­not-­ being-­male-­or-­female-­cant-­take-­away-­my-­right/. Hilton-Morrow, W., & Battles, K. (2015). Sexual Identities and the Media. London: Routledge. Mattilda (Matt Bernstein Sycamore). (2006). Nobody Passes. Rejecting Rules of Gender and Conformity. Emeryville: Seal Press. McIntosh, M. (1968). The Homosexual Role. Social Problems, 16(2), 182–192. Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Parker, K. (2018). A Fieldwork Account by Karen Parker. SOAS: University of London. Retrieved from https://blogs.soas.ac.uk/elar/2018/02/08/a-­fieldwork-­account-­by-­karen-­parker/?fbclid=IwAR2Kg0INGO7mvsRvfuhKi8I wQUUtmK54qfWR6IO_MSHMnmY4o647EbrCw2U. Puar, J. (2007). Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke University Press. Shoemaker, R. W. (1966). ‘“Democracy” and “Republic” as Understood in Late Eighteenth-Century America’, American Speech, Vol. 41, No. 2 (May, 1966), pp. 83–95. Stryker, S. (2008). Transgender History. New York: Seal Press. Taparia, S. (2011). Emasculated Bodies of Hijras: Sites of Imposed, Resisted and Negotiated Identities. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 18(2), 167–184. de Tocqueville, Alexis ([1835] 2003). Democracy in America and Two Essays on America. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Volokh, E. (2016, November 16). The United States is Both a ‘Republic’ and a ‘Democracy’—Because Democracy Is Like Cash. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-­conspiracy/ wp/2016/11/14/the-­united-­states-­is-­both-­a-­r epublic-­and-­a-­democracy-­ because-­democracy-­is-­like-­cash/. Wolfe, P. (1999). Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology. The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

PART V

Identities in the Arts: Literature, Film and Performance

CHAPTER 14

Identity and Homing Desire: Anglo-Indian Literary Perspectives Shyamasri Maji

Introduction This chapter explores the problematics of Anglo-Indian identity by analysing the concern of the community for attaining a sense of ‘home’ as demonstrated in Anglo-Indian diasporic literature. Using the concept ‘homing desire’ as an analytical tool, this chapter interrogates the idea of seeking home-in-nation and nation-in-home from the perspective of selected diasporic writers of the Anglo-Indian community. The chapter is divided into three sections, with the first section comprising a theoretical discussion of ‘home’ and ‘homing desire’. The second section looks at these concepts with reference to the history of the Anglo-Indian community in the pre-­Independence and the post-Independence decades. The third section fleshes out the central arguments in this chapter and analyses the literary representation of the views of the community on these concepts in the narratives produced by three selected diasporic Anglo-Indian writers: Patricia McGready-Buffardi, Jimmy Pyke and Keith Butler. McGreadyBuffardi’s memoir Hearts Divided in the Raj (2004) captures the efforts

S. Maji (*) Department of English, Durgapur Women’s College, Durgapur, West Bengal, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_14

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of Anglo-Indian homing chiefly in the colonial period. It talks about the author’s memories of her experiences in India as well as the experiences of her parents and grandparents there. It presents a family narrative unfolding the changes in the community’s homing desire from the 1930s to the 1950s. Jimmy Pyke’s semi-autobiographical novel The Tea Planter’s Son (2014) and Keith Butler’s novel The Secret Vindaloo (2014) variedly portray the dilemma of Anglo-Indian identity in both post-­Independence India and post-war Britain, and issues related to multiculturalism. Pyke’s novel describes an Anglo-Indian character, Alfred Stephens, who emigrated to London in 1962 but couldn’t feel at home in that metropolis even after living there for forty years. At the age of fifty-­nine, after having a successful career as a lawyer there, he decided to come back to India. Keith Butler’s novel The Secret Vindaloo (2014) is set in a detention centre in Melbourne. It narrates Puttla Marks’ baffling experiences of seeking home in multicultural Australia as an Anglo-Indian immigrant. This immigrant narrative looks backward and forward in time to historicise Puttla’s as well as his community’s crisis of not finding homely conditions in postcolonial India and, particularly, in multicultural Australia. This selection of texts exemplifies the theory and concepts introduced in the first two sections and functions as case studies for exploring changes in the community’s attitude towards ‘home’ and ‘homing’ in the last eighty years. They also help situate the discussion in three socio-political contexts—the colonial, the postcolonial and postnational; indicative of a chronological trajectory in the context of the nation. What makes this selection very pertinent in the context of a discussion on Anglo-Indian identity is that they have stemmed from the authors’ own experiences of seeking home in different nations as well as in different socio-political contexts. It could be argued that in colonial India, the Anglo-Indian community considered England to be its homeland (as demonstrated in Bhowani Junction, 1954), with one of the aims of homing among the Anglo-­ Indians consistently being the achievement of Englishness. Not surprisingly then, a large number of Anglo-Indian families emigrated to English-speaking Commonwealth countries in the decades following Indian Independence in 1947, seeking a ‘home’ abroad. This decision serves as a connecting link between ‘home’ as the domestic space and ‘homeland’ as the nation space, particularly with reference to the texts examined in this chapter. The autobiographical and semi-autobiographical nature of these narratives also helps engage with issues related to identity in a pertinent way.

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Section I: Theoretical Overview The socio-historical conditions in British India and the impact of the political and the cultural changes in the post-Independence period have been observed from the perspective of the Anglo-Indian writers who chose to immigrate and settle abroad in the 1960s and 1970s. This section is primarily concerned with analysis of the idea of home, in the broader sense of the term. It looks at the concept of home as a family space located in the interstices of cultures, within the larger domain of an ethno-geographic territory. Here, it is important to outline the historical and theoretical frameworks from which this study draws. I analyse the relationship between home and community, drawing chiefly from Avtar Brah’s analysis of home and identity among the diasporic groups in Britain, which she has presented in her seminal book Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (1996). My discussion will compare her observations of non-­ white/coloured individuals in multicultural Britain with the experiences of Anglo-Indians in India and abroad, as presented in the fictional works. Brah presents ‘homing desire’ as a critical phrase for analysing the problematics of diasporic identity in Britain. She observes that for the diasporic people, the home in the homeland is ‘a place of no return, even if it is possible to visit the geographical territory that is seen as the place of origin’ (1996, p. 192). Through this observation, Brah clearly differentiates between the (often mythic) past and the present time. She explains the present time with reference to the concept of home as ‘also the lived experience of a locality’ (1996, p. 192). The ways in which the social and the political attitudes of a particular locality in the hostland affect or influence the cultural identity of a diasporic individual are crucial factors in the formation of the individual’s notion of home in the present time. Brah analyses the concept of ‘Englishness’ in relation to the construction of subjectivities and subject positions in Britain with both white and non-­ white inhabitants (1996, p. 192). A section of this non-white population has a history of descending from ancestors belonging to the class of African and Indian servants (1996, p. 192). Often, the notion of Englishness or Britishness when it is used to define national identity of the British inhabitants is socio-politically regulated by the dividing factors of race and class (1996, p.  192). According to Brah, this mode of regulating the socio-­ cultural identity of individuals connects the question of home with the diasporic people’s ‘political and personal struggles over the social

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regulation of belonging’ (1996, p. 192). This certainly affects their perception of Britain as home and homeland. Critically and ontologically differentiating between ‘feeling at home’ and claiming a place/nation as one’s home, Brah makes the following observation: A black British woman of Jamaican parentage may well be far more at home in London than in Kingston, Jamaica, but she may insist upon defining herself as Jamaican … as a way of affirming her identity which she perceives is being denigrated when racism represents black people as being outside ‘Britishness’. (Brah 1996, p. 193)

An individual’s sense of belonging to a nation is regulated by socio-­ political norms of inclusion and exclusion of the subjects within the nation space. Ethnic identity, which has been highlighted in Brah’s observation, is a crucial factor in constructing the norms of inclusion and exclusion in society. The sense of belonging is an important factor in the discourse of both home and homing. The latter, that is, ‘homing’, connotes an activity which requires human effort for its completion or fulfilment. It also conveys the idea of re-settlement. The concept of ‘home’ suggests stability and often a permanent settlement. The intervention of diasporic experiences into the discourse of home has initiated a dialogue between home and homing—the former implies fixity and the latter refers to an ongoing process. Brah’s addition of the word ‘desire’ to the concept of homing is fascinating because it simultaneously reminds one of the ideal home—‘the mythic place of desire in diasporic imagination’ (1996, p. 192)—and of the present inhabitance which highlights a non-white person’s sense of belonging to a locality in the white society. Explaining this matter further, Brah observes, ‘The concept of diaspora places the discourse of “home” and “dispersion” in creative tension, inscribing a homing desire while simultaneously critiquing discourses of fixed origins’ (1996, pp. 192–193, emphasis original). The locality plays an important role in an immigrant’s perception of ‘home’ in the hostland. The perceptions undergo changes with the passage of time, through the experiences of the succeeding generations in a locality within the diasporic space. With reference to the locality of inhabitation, the phrase ‘homing desire’ has emerged as a significant critical term for explaining the changes that have come in the dialogue between home and diaspora. The element of ‘desire’ bestows fulfilment to the notion of

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‘home’. However, this sense of fulfilment is always in a state of deferment in an era of transnational and transcultural movement of people across the globe. The desire to achieve this fulfilment, in a way, eludes the idea of temporality ingrained in the practicality of locating ‘home’ within the geopolitical space of the nation. There are also other, more fluid, ways in which ideas of ‘home’ and ‘nation’ have been represented in various diasporic literary contexts. For instance, Salman Rushdie talks about homeland from the perspective of an exile in ‘Imaginary Homelands’ (1991), and V.S. Naipaul’s references going back to the homeland in his A House for Mr Biswas (1961) imply a sojourn into the nostalgic past, which can be reminisced about but cannot be retrieved after the lengthy tenure of exilic stay in the hostland. Interestingly, in the writings of other diasporic Indian authors such as Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri, the diasporic characters do not always crave going back to the country of their racial-cultural origin. In these instances, the idea of ‘home’ gets complicated only when the writer/ character leaves for another ‘home’ for specific reasons. However, within the Anglo-Indian experiences and writings, the idea of ‘home’ is always already complicated whether they choose to leave or not. For the same reason the Anglo-Indian ‘homing desire’ which almost invariably operates within the binaries of two nations—the homeland and the hostland— needs a more nuanced examination. Brah’s framework, which shall be examined in greater detail in the following section, is useful to engage with that complexity. According to Brah, the fact that all dispersed communities do not idealise the notion of return to the homeland leads to the notion of ‘homing desire’, which is ‘not the same as the desire for a “homeland”’ (1996, p.  197). Brah has not provided a specific definition of the concept of ‘homing desire’. Through her discussion of the lived experiences of the immigrants within the diasporic space and their idea of the mythic home, she suggests that ‘homing desire’ challenges the notion of fixed place of origin. Since ‘homing desire’ is dominated by a yearning to feel at home along the routes instead of the roots, it confers pluralistic identity to the diasporic individual, who moves across the globe in the transnational surge of manpower, capital and cultural artefacts such as cuisines, rituals and social customs. The notion of interpreting the nation as home and vice versa is based on the individuals residing therein as a homogenous group. The idea of viewing nation as family is evident in the tradition of addressing the nation

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as either fatherland or motherland. One’s claim over the land is established by drawing analogies of filial ties with the topography. In this way, the idea of ‘nation’ as a topic for public discourse makes its way into the personal space of an individual. Like the ‘family’ and the ‘community’, which are two rudimentary units of social identification, nation represents the geo-­ cultural concept for describing one’s ethnic identity to the world. In the case of community, affiliative relationship, which is manifested chiefly by one’s inclination towards particular political beliefs and cultural adherences, brings an idea of integration. Deracination is mostly cultural and sometimes physiological. In her article ‘Imagining Home in a World of Flux’ (2013), Tea Golob observes, ‘Diasporic communities somehow represent social spaces where immigrants define and construct their collective identities in terms of emphasising their “roots”’ (2013, p. 161). Here, the concept of ‘roots’ is chiefly concerned with the cultural growth of the community through the political and the social contexts of history. To the diasporic subjects, the search for their ‘roots’ is dominated by the desire to re-locate the home/homeland in cultural customs such as food, festivals, language, dress code and rituals. In this way ‘homing desire’ has emerged as an effective means to compensate the sense of loss ingrained in the concept of ‘home’.

Section II: Historical Analysis Although Avtar Brah’s discourse on home deals with the problematics of diasporic identity, her ideas are useful in analysing the complications of identity arising out of mixed racial lineage as well. As evident in the case of the Anglo-Indians, all members of their community are not diasporic, but the history of the community has produced a discourse, which traces a gradual shift in the Anglo-Indian perspectives on home/homeland. As it has been observed in Bhowani Junction (1954), many Anglo-Indians considered themselves to be a part of English society in India’s pre-­ Independence period. Due to this, a large section of the community left India after Indian Independence. Those who stayed back in India were politically recognised as an Indian community. Their cultural practices were manifested through their language, dress code, religion and social customs. However, these were markedly different from mainstream Indian cultures. It was not only the inclusion of an Anglo-based culture into the matrix of Indianness but also the Indianness given to a Westernised community that complicated the Anglo-Indian perspectives on home/homeland

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and identity in the post-Independence period. In her article ‘Is the Anglo-­ Indian “Identity Crisis” a Myth?’ (in this volume), Robyn Andrews asks, ‘Anglo-Indians in India meet the criteria of citizens of India but do Anglo-­ Indians feel “Indian”? And do non-Anglo-Indians recognize them as “Indian”?’ (2017, p.  181). The two questions connect the discourse of Anglo-Indian identity with the idea of looking at the postcolonial nation as Anglo-Indians’ home. It also interrogates the notion of ‘to feel at home’ which has been discussed earlier with reference to Brah’s concept of homing desire. Since a large number of Anglo-Indians have settled in nations which identify themselves as multicultural (such as Australia and Canada), the question of whether they feel at home there is also crucial. The following subsections will discuss the different factors that have affected the community’s feeling at home in postcolonial India as well as in the nations where they emigrated. ‘Gendered’ Lands Family and community can be seen to represent the soil where identity is rooted. In the ‘Postscript’ to his book Hostages to India (1926), Herbert Alick Stark, an Anglo-Indian historian, said that ‘[i]f England is the land of our fathers, India is the land of our mothers’ (1926, p. 97). The trend of gendering the nation is an effective means for constructing filial bonds between the nationals and the geopolitical territory inhabited by them. In her article ‘Land of Our Mothers: Home, Identity and Nationality for Anglo-Indians in British India 1919–1947’ (Blunt 2002), Alison Blunt has stated that home and nation are used as tropes for exploring the ‘interplay of gender, racial, class and sexual power relations’ (p.  51). In this context, ‘[i]mportant themes include domestication of imperial subjects, particularly as servants, housewives and mothers’ (2002, p.  51). In the case of Anglo-Indians, the ideology behind gendering India as motherland and England as fatherland is overtly controlled by this sexual politics of colonialism. Blunt observes that ‘[c]ommunity claims for legitimate heritage were articulated through images of Britain as fatherland and India as motherland, and such claims were closely tied to political attempts to gain a legitimate stake in national life’ (2002, p.  51). During colonial times, paternal lineage was considered crucial to the construction of one’s legitimate identity in society. Paternal identity, which is usually a matter of personal concern in the construction of one’s social identity, played a crucial role in the construction of the national identity of Anglo-Indians.

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Their paternal identity was evidence of their European lineage, which not only assured them of a legitimate stake in the national life but was also a point of pride due to associating with the masculine team in the colonial political power play. Their mixed descent gave them the opportunity to choose the coloniser’s nation as fatherland and the nation of the colonised subjects, where they were born and raised, as motherland. From the postcolonial perspective, it can be said that the fatherland is symbolic of the phallic power which subjugates the feminine territory symbolised by the colonised motherland. Anglo-Indians were recognised as an Indian minority community in India 1911, prior to the dismantling of colonial authority in 1947. Frank Anthony, who was elected President-in-chief of the All India Anglo-Indian Association in 1942, made political efforts to establish the community as a minority community in India. The definition of the community as it is given in Article 366 (2) of the Indian Constitution draws on the earlier definition and states European lineage on the paternal side is required for Anglo-Indian identity. So even in the postcolonial period, the European forefather’s identity, which is symbolic of the patriarchal colonial past, controls the community’s identity. This has been represented variously in the narratives of diasporic Anglo-Indian writers, as discussed next.

Section III: Literary Perspectives In this section, I analyse the anxiety of ‘homing’ as it has been represented in the works of three diasporic Anglo-Indian writers: Patricia McGready-­ Buffardi, Jimmy Pyke and Keith Butler. These writers have lived both in India and abroad. Their experiences in their motherland and the hostland have been represented in their literary narratives, either directly from the perspective of first-person narrator or indirectly through the viewpoint of the Anglo-Indian characters in the texts. Home and nation feature as overlapping issues in their writing. In her memoir, Patricia McGready-Buffardi (b. 1941–), an Anglo-­ Indian author settled in Washington, looks back nostalgically towards India and addresses the country of her birth unequivocally as her ‘motherland’. Jimmy Pyke (1943–2016), who had an English father and a Nepali mother, lived in London for forty years. His debut novel presents a critique of the community’s desire to seek ‘home’ in Britain, which was once looked upon as the fatherland by many Anglo-Indians, as discussed. Keith Butler (b. 1947–), an Anglo-Indian writer and teacher, who

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presently lives in New Zealand, has represented the community’s experience of settling in multicultural Australia through the fictional narrative of Puttla Marks, an Anglo-Indian immigrant. Each of these narratives shall be discussed, highlighting the community’s attitude towards the concepts of nation-in-home and vice versa. These texts are valuable as cultural narratives and may be used as primary sources of research in Cultural Studies. The Motherland In her memoir Hearts Divided in the Raj (2004), Patricia McGready-­ Buffardi has recollected the experiences of Eric McGowan, her maternal grandfather, who was an early settler of McCluskieganj, which was established in Bihar in 1933 as an Anglo-Indian homeland (it is now situated in the state of Jharkhand in India). It is considered by many as an expression of the community’s effort to find a home in, but separate from, India (Lahiri-Dutt 1990, pp.  64–65). In her article ‘Collective Memory and Productive Nostalgia’, Alison Blunt observes that ‘McCluskieganj represented a dream of independence that was located within British India and remained loyal to the British Empire and offered a vision of a homeland and nation that opposed the vision of independence held by anti-imperial nationalists of the 1930s’ (2003, p.  718). The vision was to be reified through the activity of homing. The early settlers of McCluskieganj had come to that remote place from the railway towns scattered all over India and even from big cities to nurture the dream of independence. The nostalgia of this place, as we observe it in Hearts Divided in the Raj (McGready-­ Buffardi 2004), is associated with loss of the dream. This loss left an indelible mark not only in the collective consciousness of the Anglo-Indian community but also in the personal memory of the author. McGready-Buffardi learned of her grandfather McGowan’s experiences from her mother, who, along with her younger sister and one of her brothers, had accompanied her father in residing in that potential Anglo-Indian homeland. Through the telling of her family’s experiences, she reveals the supposed collective consciousness of the community in a chapter titled sarcastically ‘McCluskieganj: Little Lamb Eat Crow’. She uses mythical symbols for describing the emotions of the early settlers with the newly established homeland: ‘With high hopes of prospering in McCluskieganj about 300 innocent lambs, arriving from Anglo-Indian communities across the country, followed their well-intentioned shepherd to the promised land’ (McGready-Buffardi 2004, p. 63). However, their hopes were

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dashed when they discovered that it was impossible to survive in a place that lacked in basic amenities such as ‘running water, electricity, roads and decent stores’ (McGready-Buffardi 2004, p. 65). Eric McGowan, and his thirteen-year-old son Aubrey, toiled through the days in their tobacco fields. The author’s mother, who was just seventeen years old at that time, provided elementary education to the children of the settlers in the railway station. The author describes how on their way to the station or while coming back home after buying necessary items from the vendors near the station her mother and her mother’s sister, when they were still children, had to walk over ditches and drainage channels. They also came across wild animals. Unable to cope with the primitive surroundings, the two girls returned to their auntie’s house in Nagpur. A few days after their return Aubrey died of malaria. Within one year of their settlement in McCluskieganj, Eric McGowan was left all alone in that remote place. His condition became particularly miserable when his foot was pierced by a splinter of tiger grass. His friends hospitalised him in Calcutta but he succumbed to septicaemia. In Patricia McGready-Buffardi’s memoir, McCluskieganj is represented as a failed project. In analysing the causes of this failure, she described how difficult it is for an urban community to cope with the hazards of living in a rural wilderness. In her reminiscences the representation of McCluskieganj as an Anglo-Indian homeland contradicts the common view that ‘homeland’ evokes nostalgia in the minds of the dispersed residents. The nightmarish experiences of her ancestors in McCluskieganj represent an image of an unstable home, which passes from one generation to another through family narratives. McGready-Buffardi’s decision to emigrate to London in 1961 may well have resulted from the memories that had threatened her family’s and her community’s ‘homing desire’ within India. However, she justifies her emigration, as an urge to explore the ‘British’ half of her Anglo-Indian identity (2004, p. 344). This raises the question of whether it was possible for her to seek and practise her British identity in India. It provokes one to ask if the change in India’s political status from a British colony to a sovereign territory operated as the key factor in the emigration of young McGready-Buffardi. Her emigration may represent her urge for seeking her British half of her identity. It may reveal anxiety about adjusting to anti-English socio-cultural idioms of postcolonial India. It may also convey her hope for a better socio-economic situation in order to start a family, as she was emigrating with her fiancé. Another question that might be addressed in this context is what McGready-Buffardi means by

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‘exploring the “British” half of her identity’? Does it simply refer to cultural affiliation of the Anglo-Indians with the British nation, or does it imply an Anglo-Indian’s desire to be a part of Britain’s economic and technological progress? Seen from the perspective of the gendered nation, her urge to explore the British half of her identity can be interpreted as her quest for the masculine power symbolised by the British in colonial discourse. With the end of Britain’s colonial rule in India, it was evident that the symbolic father would no longer be able to exert his power on the motherland. In the motherland, opportunities of employment and social progress for the Anglo-Indians were gradually shrinking. U.E. CharltonStevens observes that although the Anglo-Indian leader Frank Anthony had succeeded in retaining the reservations (or quotas, as they were known as) for Anglo-­Indians in job vacancies at the time of Independence, this was a temporary arrangement (2018, p. 213). Such a provision was made under the condition that these facilities ‘would be reduced “as nearly as possible” by 10 percent successively every two years and expire fully after ten years’ (2018, p. 213). It is obvious from Charlton-Stevens’ work that at the time McGready-Buffardi decided to emigrate, in 1961, the quotas for the Anglo-Indians in government jobs were almost exhausted. It is safe to speculate that economic insecurity in the post-Independence years affected the youth of the community in such a way that many preferred to venture abroad for prosperity and economic stability. India, the country where the community began, seemed for some to have offered a temporary ‘home’ and then was constructed as forcing them into a kind of exile for those who decided to emigrate. The community persisted in the gendered notion of searching for a stable home in the fatherland. The Fatherland It was in India that they had first experienced the prejudices of having mixed descent. The extent to which they were included or excluded as national subjects within the social spaces of the fatherland after emigrating from India was an important factor in reviewing the Anglo-Indian self. In his semi-autobiographical novel, The Tea-Planters Son (2014), Jimmy Pyke shows that Anglo-Indian homemaking in London is restricted to within the family space of Anglo-Indian immigrants. In spite of being a British citizen through his English father, Alfred Stephens, the India-born Anglo-Indian character who had emigrated to London in 1962, could not

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feel at home there due to his experiences of racist attitudes of many in the host society. In 1943, Alfred Stephens, the protagonist in Pyke’s novel, was born to a local Nepali woman, Mylie, and an Englishman, Lewis Stephens, who came to Darjeeling as a tea planter in 1937. Lewis Stephens abandoned his family in India and returned to England after the Second World War. Since such an incident was quite common in the tea estates and the indigo plantations, Mylie and Alfred accepted his absence in their lives with resilience. Because he had an English father, Alfred was eligible for an English education in St Ignatius College, a Christian missionary school in Darjeeling, where children of Anglo-Indian and elite Indian families studied. After passing his Senior Cambridge Examination, Alfred moved to England in 1962 with the aim of becoming a lawyer. By the time he arrived in London, the immigration laws, which later restricted immigrants from the new Commonwealth countries, made this relatively easy to achieve. Being an Anglo-Indian born to a British father in British India, he was a British citizen by birth. This gave him the right to become a solicitor, which was denied to the immigrants of other Indian communities. His national identity represented through his citizenship, however, did not mean that he could comply with the social norms of being British in London. As a result, he, along with other non-white immigrants from the South Asian, Caribbean and African countries, who constituted the multiethnic society of post-war Britain, became victims of racial prejudices. One evening, as narrated by Pyke, Alfred was thrown out of a pub for being mistaken for a ‘Paki’ (a slang word for the Pakistani immigrants). Another example of discrimination was when he went to buy the textbooks for his law courses, and the shop assistants took him for an Indian and ridiculed his ambition to become a lawyer. Even after he became a solicitor, he had to adopt a means of proxy correspondence with his white clients by engaging Linda, ‘a 21-year-old confident, extrovert, flirty and bubbly blonde girl’ (2014, p. 222) to interview them. He had to create a front—white and English—through which to negotiate with British citizens. At this point, evidence of his affiliation to the Anglo-Indian fatherland such as his British citizenship, English education and British paternal lineage appear to be of less relevance in registering his social identity as a British citizen. Through his experiences in the legal profession in London, he came to know about several social maladies such as racism, gender discrimination and sexual discrimination, which was contrary to his expectations of England as an ideal ‘home’.

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It is quite astonishing that although a large number of Anglo-Indians had emigrated to the United Kingdom in the first two decades of Indian Independence, Alfred mentions knowing only three Anglo-Indian families in London—his own family, his wife’s parents (2014, p. 263) and a Mr and Mrs Malcolm, an Anglo-Indian couple, who had come from Park Circus in Calcutta (2014, p.  199). This aspect of Pyke’s narrative may imply that the Anglo-Indian community were invisible to a great extent in the multicultural social matrix of London. Swayed by the flow of Anglo-Indian exodus from India in the years following Indian Independence, Pyke writes that the family of Alfred’s wife had emigrated to London from a railway colony of Ajmer (Rajasthan) in 1952 (2014, pp. 263–64). Their decision to emigrate, at that time, had been driven by the fact that since the community was culturally aligned to the West, in England they would be more secure than they would be in postcolonial India where they were likely to be ill-treated as members of a minority community. Most of their English neighbours in Bermondsey, South London, however, would not interact with them (2014, p. 264), and at her grammar school, Angela was bullied for being ‘one of the few coloured pupils’ (2014, p.  265). Despite this, Angela had made her mother proud by being the first member in the family to earn a college degree. This was certainly one of the positive outcomes of their ‘homing’ in London. Alfred’s orientation into Anglo-Indian lifestyle took place in Angela’s home, where he relished typical Anglo-Indian recipes during his weekend visits (2014, p.  269). Their fifteen years of married life ended with Angela’s death from lung cancer in 1992 (2014, p. 341). Sadly, they were childless as Angela had experienced a number of miscarriages. Since women are both symbolically and biologically represented as sources of genesis, Angela’s miscarriages emphasise the bleakness of the community’s future in the fatherland. While her death suggests the extinction of the community in the diasporic space of the United Kingdom, the death of Alfred’s mother, Mylie’s from throat cancer in India, makes one apprehensive about the community’s return to the motherland. Along with this personal tragedy, the riots in Thatcherite England, incidents of plane hijacking and finally the terrorist attack of 9/11 left Alfred Stephens in utter despair. He seemed to realise that with the passage of time through the changing contexts of socio-political ideologies, the Anglo-Indian community’s desire for homemaking in white nations had also left them very vulnerable.

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After Angela’s death, Alfred decides to go back to his mother’s house in Darjeeling (India), but there is no sense of rejoicing in this homecoming. The novel ends with a note of sadness.1 In the character of Alfred, one can observe the community’s dilemma in choosing between the fatherland and the motherland. Alfred’s experiences of becoming victims of racism result in the gradual transformation of his attitude towards ‘home’ from a fixed place of origin to one in flux. The ‘Second’ Land? Keith Butler’s novel The Secret Vindaloo (2014) looks at ‘home’ and ‘homeland’ from a postcolonial perspective. The time frame of this narrative ranges from the post-Independence years in India to recent times in both India and Australia. Shattering the idealistic notions about family, community and nation, it critiques the concept of homeland. This novel is mostly set in Melbourne, Australia. Here, Melbourne symbolises Australian multiculturalism. In reading of the harrowing experiences of Puttla Marks, an Anglo-Indian immigrant in Australia, the kaleidoscope of multiculturalism can be seen to be an illusion. In spite of living in Melbourne for forty years, Puttla has not acquired Australian citizenship. He is introduced to the readers as a ‘vindaloo chaser’, the Editor of a food blog called ‘India Bytes’. For forty long years, he had been looking for the authentic recipe of vindaloo, which his mother used to cook for him in India. His reaction on tasting what he feels is ‘mock’ vindaloo in an Indian restaurant owned by an Anglo-Indian woman gets him arrested by the Social Operation Group, followed by an interrogation at Melbourne’s detention centre, where he was asked to complete a questionnaire required to qualify as an Australian citizen. These instances illustrate the ironic relationship between the theoretical precepts of multiculturalism and their practical implications. Although Melbourne is inundated by Indian people and Indian restaurants, Anttick, who interrogates Puttla, does not know about ‘vindaloo’, the popular Anglo-Indian cuisine. He has no knowledge about the existence of the Anglo-Indian community in the antipodes or 1  In an email (personal communication, 8 August 2019), Pyke informed me that he had planned to write a sequel to this semi-autobiographical novel, which would narrate Alfred’s experiences of homecoming to India at the age of fifty-nine. The title of the sequel—‘Walk Alone’—brings to mind images of alienation, exclusion and isolation. Such images imply the social threats impending over the old and shattered Alfred. Pyke’s novel foregrounds the need for recognising cultural diversity in the diasporic space.

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elsewhere. The attitude of the Special Operation Group, who arrested Puttla, is both racist and aggressive. They look upon him as a strange creature and describe him in racial terms: ‘Sixties, tanned. Not sure if he’s Asian or Caucasian’ (2014, p. 9). Their aggressiveness is represented in the following description: ‘Handcuffed along with the group of skip ropers, Puttla was bundled out of the building into a black, unmarked van’ (2014, p. 10). During his interrogation, Puttla is represented as one whose identity is doubly complicated. His racial hybridity and his immigrant status have rendered him unsuccessful in both social and personal spheres. He has failed not only in acquiring Australian citizenship but also has failed to qualify as a responsible parent. His daughter is estranged from both him and his middle-class Anglo-Indian values. She does not want to conform to her community identity and seeks to avoid the family space representing the cultural space of the community. The Australian government puts her under the charge of caregivers. There is no mention of Puttla’s wife in the novel. From this, it can be assumed that after his daughter leaves him, Puttla is left alone in Melbourne, without a family. Meanwhile, his mother, Iris, dies of cancer in India. Her suffering and death metaphorically imply the extinction of the community in India. His memories of post-­ Independence India, where he had been born and brought up, are fraught with humiliation, poverty and social discrimination. His mother represents Anglo-Indian femininity, which has been subjected to stereotyped representation in Indian society. Through his ironical style, Butler has critiqued the stereotyped representations of Anglo-Indian women. He does this in part by telling Iris’ story. At first when he writes that Iris engages in pre-marital consummation of love with her Goan beau, Gomeze, and becomes pregnant, it seems that she conforms to the stereotyped image of Anglo-Indian women as wanton and immortal. Later on, when the readers come to know about the struggles she had to face in raising her son single-handedly, they learn to perceive Anglo-Indian femininity beyond the stereotyped images. Her hardships represent the struggle of an economically backward Anglo-­ Indian woman in Indian society. The narrative reveals that Iris concealed her pregnancy and gets married to Jack Marks, an Englishman. This was how Puttla received the paternity of the Englishman. In spite of forging his paternal identity, his mother couldn’t establish him as an Englishman. Her efforts ended in making Puttla a British subject, which required renewal of his visa every

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six months in order to stay in India. As described by his aunt, Puttla lived like a hyphen between two fathers. After, Jack Marks’ death Gomeze lived in Iris’ house and thrived on the Englishman’s property. Gomeze is depicted as a money-minded person who would shun every moral obligation in order to fulfil his own desires. He shows no concern for his son. Iris, however, could not shrug off responsibility for their son. She raised Puttla with love and genuine parental concern. Whether in India or Australia, the dysfunctional family features as a dominant theme in Puttla’s narrative. He interrogates the importance of kinship within the family as well as within the nation space. His protagonist, Puttla, does not nurture any romantic idea about nation and national identity. He does not seek paternal and maternal care from within the geopolitical territories he has lived in. Any desire to seek kinship with the nation seems to have been exhausted. His outlook towards ‘nation’ is unemotional and pragmatic. He addresses India as his ‘first land’, which implies that Australia is the ‘second land’ for him and other Anglo-Indians who currently live as a diaspora such as in Australia. His representation of the territories in terms of numeric order reveals the ideological shift of the diasporic Anglo-Indians from their ancestors in the matter of national identity. He compares diasporic Anglo-Indians with the Jews, who are acknowledged as a dispersed community. In the Epilogue, Puttla speaks on behalf of all members of the Anglo-Indian diaspora, stating that they are striving hard to preserve the cultural identity of the community in community get-togethers. It is only in these community gatherings that they can express themselves without inhibition. Puttla is not able to retrieve the secret recipe of the vindaloo cooked by his mother. With the passage of time and predominance of cultural hybridity, it is not possible to bring back the authentic version of any cultural artefact. That is perhaps the reason why the woman who had stolen his mother’s recipe could not produce the authentic recipe of vindaloo in her restaurant. Butler’s novel underlines the fact that even in this age of cultural hybridity, people search for authenticity in one’s racial and national affiliations. This emphasis on authenticity not only challenges the effectiveness of multiculturalism but also shows that within the diasporic space of multicultural Australia, the Anglo-Indian community is overlooked and unacknowledged. In such a social condition, Anglo-Indian’s ‘homing desire’ is threatened and restricted to the shrunken margins of the occasional community get-togethers. This becomes evident at the end of the novel when

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Puttla takes up the role of spokesperson for the diaspora and makes the following remark: ‘we are on our own wherever we live, and it’s odd living that way, amongst strangers. We do meet for reunions. That’s when we have fun’ (2014, p. 261).

Conclusion Based on the three works, it can be said that in the pre-Independence period, Anglo-Indian ‘homing desire’ presented a very short-sighted view of ‘home’ restricting its perception within the geographical and the ideological peripheries of the colonial Empire. This is typified in the homing desire represented in the narratives of Eric McGowan, McGready-­ Buffardi’s grandfather, and Iris, Puttla’s mother. Iris’ narrative, however, begins mainly at the juncture of pre-Independence and post-­Independence and ends in the postnational period. While McGowan’s efforts to tame the adversities in McCluskieganj highlight the aforesaid short-sightedness from the geographical perspective, Iris’ desperation to make her home with an Englishman underlines the ideological factors that often shaped the concepts of home and identity of members of this community. However, in both cases, it is clear that both McGready-Buffardi and Butler hold a pessimistic attitude towards homing. Even, Pyke, who presents an Anglo-Indian character belonging to the first generation of the Anglo-­ Indian migrants in his novel, does not challenge this trend of pessimism. The re-settlements of the characters such as Eric McGowan, Iris and Alfred Stephens are seen as a means to reconcile the pessimism. In the narratives of McGready-Buffardi and Pyke, the Anglo-Indian homing desire does not reflect the positive vibe manifested in Avtar Brah’s critical usage of the concept ‘homing desire’, which seeks to challenge the notion of fixed origin. The narratives of McGready-Buffardi and Pyke have a conventional structure: the chronology of homing in their texts is linear and more descriptive than it is in Butler’s novel, which, unlike the other two works, is replete with postcolonial irony and satire. The narrator in McGready-­ Buffardi’s memoir talks about the pangs of coping with the changing socio-cultural situations in the postnational phase. Such a description may justify her decision to emigrate from India to England, but it does not erase her yearning for a fixed origin. Pyke’s novel is interesting in many ways, one pertinent reason being its references to several historical incidents across the continents such as the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, the murder of the members of the royal family of Nepal by the Crown Prince

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of Nepal in June 2001 and the terrorist attack of 9/11. Alfred’s mentioning of these and other socio-political incidents show the impact of the local happenings on the global arena from the perspective of an Anglo-­ Indian immigrant. Alfred’s experiences in London exhibit the issue of inclusion and exclusion of coloured people in multicultural London and examine how such a matter can affect the community’s homing in Britain. At the same time, the novel also represents an Anglo-Indian immigrant’s never-ending search for a homeland and a fixed identity by informing us of Alfred’s decision to go back to his motherland. Butler, through the use of non-linear time frame, and satire, not only contradicts this yearning for fixity but also challenges the rigid procedures of identity construction in both postnational and multicultural scenarios. Considering these aspects, it can be said that Butler’s novel represents the spirit of ‘creative tension’ which according to Brah constitutes the discourse of home and dispersion. On the whole, all three diasporic writers have prioritised memory over anything else as the ever-widening trajectory to narrate their views on the community’s homing desire.

References Andrews, R. (2017). Is the Anglo-Indian ‘Identity Crisis’ a Myth? In Z. Rocha & F. Fozdar (Eds.), Mixed Race in Asia: Past, Present and Future (pp. 179–194). Routledge. Blunt, A. (2002, January). Land of Our Mothers: Home, Identity and Nationality for Anglo-Indians in British India 1919–1947. History Workshop Journal, 54(1), 49–72. Blunt, A. (2003). Collective Memory and Productive Nostalgia: Anglo-Indian Homemaking at McCluskieganj. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21, 717–738. https://doi.org/10.1068/d327. Brah, A. (1996). Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. Routledge. Butler, K. (2014). The Secret Vindaloo. Bay Road Media. Charlton-Stevens, U. (2018). Anglo-Indians and the Minority Politics in South Asia. Routledge. Golob, T. (2013). Imagining a Home in a World of Flux: Challenging Individualisation and Transnational Belongings. Polish Sociological Review, 182, 153–164. JSTOR. 4 January. 2018. PDF. Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala ([1990] 2015). Chapter Five ‘Background of the Utopia.’ In Search of a Homeland: Anglo-Indians and McCluskiegunge, Calcutta: Minerva Associates Private Ltd. Excerpt. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 15(1), 55–78. Masters, J. ([1954] 2007). Bhowani Junction. Penguin Books.

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McGready-Buffardi, P. (2004). Hearts Divided in the Raj. Author House. Pyke, J. (2014). The Tea Planter’s Son: An Anglo-Indian Life. N.p.: Partridge. Print. Rushdie, S. (1991). Imaginary Homelands. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. Granta Books. Stark, H. A. ([1926] 2007). Hostages to India. The Simon Wallenberg Press.

CHAPTER 15

‘Not Knowing for How Much Longer’: Requiem for the Living as an Act of Cultural Recovery of the Paranki Community in Kerala Merin Simi Raj and Avishek Parui This chapter closely examines the novella Requiem for the Living as a narrative that brings together the memory, history, and everyday experiences of the Paranki community in Kerala which could be best described as ‘a minority within a minority’ (Devika 2015, p. xxv) among Anglo-Indians in India. This short novella by Johny Miranda, originally written in Malayalam in 20041 and translated in 2013 by Sajai Jose, could be described as a private rendition of the history of a Portuguese creole community in Kochi whose identity is entrenched within the overlaps of colonial, national, and regional historiographies. While the text remained fairly 1  The Malayalam title is Jeevichirikkunnavarkku Vendiyulla Oppees. The Author’s Note defines oppees as ‘a prayer for the dead’ and the novella as a ‘story of a people who are eligible for an oppees in every way, while yet alive’ (Miranda 2013, p. xi).

M. S. Raj (*) • A. Parui Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_15

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invisible for almost a decade, the English translation received immediate acclaim as ‘an extraordinary work of literature which promises to be a critical event in contemporary Malayalam’ (Miranda 2013, p. xxxvi), with reviewers and critics describing the narration as Marquezian and magic realist and identifying it as the ‘first insider-fiction to emerge from the Kochi-Creole community’ (Zacharia 2014). In this work of fiction, through a series of scattered narratives remembered by Josy Pereira, the narrator, also known as Osha, we are introduced to a nearly dysfunctional Paranki family in the coastal area in Kochi, Kerala, whose family history and personal struggles become representative of the minority community which has an equally complex past, present, and future. Through the perspectives enabled by Memory Studies, this chapter unpacks the activity of remembering and attempts to foreground its significance in the act of cultural recovery, especially for an almost forgotten minority community. While providing a glimpse into the community’s complex past and present, this novella also becomes relevant in providing insights into local history, whose roots run deep into pre-British colonial era from the sixteenth century onwards. What makes this text most interesting is the deliberate ways in which it stays away from making any claims to historical or anthropological documentation; instead, it seeks ‘to record a unique way of living and speaking that is lost’ (Miranda 2013, p. xii), largely through the sporadic recollections of a flawed, unreliable, and paralysed narrator. We read this text as an important intervention in mapping the cultural life of Paranki community while also enabling a diverse and wider discourse on Anglo-Indian identities.

Memory Studies as an Interpretative Framework The relevance of memory studies in a complex understanding of culture and cultural identities is significant, especially in ways it connects fiction and fictional representation with historical reality and materiality. For if memory may be considered as a representative category and an act of reconstruction that entails emplotment as well as configuration (Ricoeur 2000, p. 150), at neural levels involving incomplete and selective encoding of experience as well as in broader cultural networks of codes, fiction becomes a powerful tool to depict and dramatize such activity. As an effective as well as an affective medium of remembering and representation, fiction emerges as a play and a liminal category between material reality and imaginative possibility. With its foregrounding and focalization of

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human cognitive bias and unreliability, fiction also becomes a complex capsule of collective memory and cultural identities in terms of depicting how such identities are forgotten and remembered in collective imagination. Memory, in its micro motor levels as well as in its broader cultural frameworks, is an entanglement of remembering and forgetting which emerge not as ontological opposites but as connected cognitive categories, corroborated by psychologists and cultural theorists alike. Particularly in the context of cultural memory as depicted in the novella selected for this study, forgetting is a significant activity in ‘allowing the community to function in the aftermath of social and historical catastrophes’ in terms of determining ‘the very contours of what is recalled and preserved; what is transmitted as remembrance from one generation to the next’ (Whitehead 2008, p. 14). In this complex interplay of remembering and representation, the relationship of matter and metaphor becomes significant in fiction and fictional retelling of reality. In particular, memory studies as an interpretative framework highlights how events and materials condense into symbols, signifiers, and metaphors of memory. Drawing on such studies, this paper will examine the focal points and economy of affect and metaphors in its selected work of fiction for a more nuanced understanding of the cultural memory and identity of the represented community. As Venkat Rao examines in his work Cultures of Memory in South Asia (2014), memories in a complex multicultural context emerge from a ‘force-field of traces—traces that haunt the finite body interminably but discontinually and transgenerationally’ (p. 62). The quality of interminability in collective memory is crucial to any examination of cultural identity, especially in ways it navigates with discontinuities across generations. Thus, if the individual and the collective both remember and represent through an interminable field of traces which constitute material markers as well as affective orders, the activities of memory and reiterations apropos of identities move with seamless shifts as well through fault lines. Narratives offer a finite frame in which the play of interminability and discontinuities in memory can be accommodated and articulated. As Hannah Arendt argues, without such narratives, the act of remembering— at a private as well as collective level—emerges as an ‘intolerable sequence of events’ that defies any meaning making mechanism (Quoted in Cavarero 2000, p. 2). Memory as a collective narrative category is thus designed to preserve meaningful identities in a selected sequence of events that foregrounds the remembered and conceals the forgotten. This highlights the unique quality of fiction to represent a combination of points of view in

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terms of examining historical reality and narrative possibilities, adding the extra dimension of affect and focalized existential interiority. The complexity of the medium of fiction thus lies in its liminality and its entanglement of materiality and metaphoricity, through which the remembered as well as the dismembered, the real and the spectral, can be stylized and stated. This is especially significant for a doubly marginalized community like the Parankis who inhabit the liminal landscape between remembering and forgetting, and whose identity in terms of its cultural markers is characterized by classifications as well as by elisions. The convergence of cultural studies and memory studies is uniquely suitable to examine the complex entanglements of identity production and preservation apropos of liminal categories such as Anglo-Indians and Parankis. For if cultural codes and cultural memory alike may be read as activities that entail encoding of information, such processes also operate with the production of finite frames that can consolidate the convenient codes corresponding to coveted identities. This immediately foregrounds the politics of privilege and priorities apropos of collective identity formation that also necessitates production of limits and borders. Examining memory and remembered identities as a ‘constructive process’, such research at the interface of cultural studies and cognitive psychology argues that ‘certain information from complex environments is necessarily prioritized at the expense of other information’ (Assman and Shortt 2012, p.  202). This creates what is classified theoretically as memory specificity whereby specific experiences of a collective determine the nature of new encoding of information, a study uniquely relevant in research on marginalized, exiled, or traumatized communities. The formal hyphenated labels ‘Anglo-Indian’ or ‘Luso-Indians’ seem to at least theoretically suggest that this is an identity that is torn between two (or more) nations/cultures/ethnicities, and at the same time trying to assimilate; this hyphenation often calls for an understanding of colonialism, transnationalism, immigration, cosmopolitanism, and globalization. Having said that, the already tenuous consensus on this hyphenated identity, which also operates on the basis of notions of citizenship and political rights, gets evidently splintered when it comes to the Parankis. The absence of any ancestral pride or fantastic claim that rests on a foreign country/European ancestry or any longing to return to the ‘home country’ renders the Paranki identity ambivalent and even invalid in peculiar ways. This unavailability of the privileged nostalgia is a unique marker of the marginalization of the Parankis, rendering their collective memory contingent and making

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the entanglement of material reality and fabulation in their case more complex in quality.

Parankis as Anglo-Indians The popular and dominant understanding of Anglo-Indians in India is as a minority community of mixed descent with British/European ancestors, who either chose to or were unable to stay back after the Indian Independence. Their history is closely linked to British colonialism, with the political event of Independence resulting in a significant overturn of fortunes for most, but at the same time recognizing them as a minority community in India with representations in the state legislatures and the Parliament.2 There has been a growing scholarship on Anglo-Indians in India—largely based around railway towns such as Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay and also small towns such as Kharagpur, Asansol, Hubli, Kochi, and the likes—drawing upon a history which runs parallel to British colonial history and colonial modernity. In most such discussions the British continued to remain as the convenient and recognizable ‘reference group’ for defining Anglo-Indians (Wright 1997, p. 45). Their varied experiences of dilemmas and crises have been narrativized in literary fiction, documentary, and cinema, though not always with an accuracy or representation that found favour among Anglo-Indians. Much has also been written on the achievements, diversity, and heterogeneity of this community across India and in the diaspora, which simultaneously helped defy as well as expose many stereotypes that surround their identity and lifestyle (see Caplan 2000; D’Cruz 2003; Andrews 2014). Studies such as Portuguese in Malabar: A Social History of Luso-Indians (2013) by Charles Dias and Malabar and the Dutch (1931) by K. M. Panikkar have contributed to the historical understanding of Anglo-Indian communities which are of nonBritish descent. To a very large extent, these studies have already usefully complicated the notions on which much of the popular narratives and academic scholarship on Anglo-Indian culture rest. At the same time, even recent discussions on Anglo-Indian communities in India, despite acknowledging that they are not a homogenous lot, tend to identify ‘the prevalence of English as mother tongue, western lifestyle, ancestral/ European pride and affiliation to Christianity’ as common and visible 2  To be noted in this context that the Anglo-Indian seats reserved in the Parliament and state legislatures were abolished in 2020 by the 126th Constitutional Amendment Act.

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markers of identity (Coelho 1997, p. 561). Even in studies that seem to be more empathetically responsive to the troubled history of miscegenation and the resultant hybrid status, the Anglo-Indians are conveniently referred to as ‘mixed race individuals who identify English as their mother tongue and Christianity as their religion, with Westernised ways of dress, personal habits, and social conduct’ (Mijares 2004, p. 113). These dominant descriptions have eclipsed the general understanding of Anglo-­ Indianness that do not necessarily subscribe to these linguistic, religious, sartorial, and cultural markers. It is at this point that we seek to draw attention to the complex history of the Anglo-Indians of Portuguese descent, also known as Parankis, Firangees, Eurasians, and Luso-Indians. In Requiem for the Living, except for the affiliation with Christianity, that too with a unique set of markers and rituals, the Anglo-Indianness of Parankis challenges most received notions and commonly consumed knowledge about the community. Interestingly, the fact that the novella is written in Malayalam by an Anglo-Indian of Paranki descent who has only a working knowledge of English challenges the linguistic premise of perceived Anglo-Indian identity in very fundamental ways. The socio-­ historical context and relevance of a text like Requiem for the Living needs to be understood within this historical conundrum, where the hybrid identity of the Parankis are often negated, or at best glossed over by the pervasive hyphenated minority discourse. While broadly referred to as Anglo-Indians, thanks to the constitutional definition,3 the Luso-Indians, or Parankis as they are referred to in the text in discussion here, do not have English as their mother tongue, and their social experiences, cultural backgrounds, and lifestyle preferences have almost nothing in common with Anglo-Indian communities elsewhere. In the novella, this community is introduced in the Author’s Note as ‘the

3  The Article 366(2) of the Indian Constitution states, ‘An Anglo-Indian means a person whose father or any other of whose male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territories of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not there for temporary purpose only’. Nonetheless, as per the view upheld and propagated since pre-Independence days by Frank Anthony, and further legitimized by the All-India Anglo-Indian Association, an AngloIndian is restrictedly defined as a person of European descent whose mother tongue is English, whose religion is Christianity, and whose preferences in food, clothing, and lifestyle are visibly Western.

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Anglo-Indian Latin Catholics4 of central Kerala’ (Miranda 2013, p. xi) carrying ‘outlandish surnames that stick out like tails’ (p. xii), with men who ‘weren’t the kind who wore trousers’ (p. 2) as ‘coastal people, the lowest of low’ (p. 12) and later as ‘Paranki scum, with only surnames to show for themselves’ (p. 13). These are markers that seek to capture the hybrid as well as marginalized identity of the Parankis in Kochi, fraught within the politics of race, caste, religion, region, and language, which the chapter will discuss in the subsequent sections. The objective of this chapter is to uncover as well as recover what is lost and forgotten in the encounters between memory and forgetting, the private and the public, the secular and the religious as evinced in the novella. In the process, it corroborates one of the central ideas in contemporary research in memory studies which examines remembering as reconstruction, an ‘activity of ceaseless interpretation [which] involves both selection and rejection’ whereby memory is ‘no longer related to the past as a form of truth but as a form of desire’ (Whitehead 2008, p. 49). This aspirational quality of collective memory is particularly relevant for a complexly remembered community such as the Parankis in Kochi whose location in the already marginalized constitutional identity of Anglo-Indians is insufficiently classified and hence contingent. In this context, we also argue that this novella pushes the boundaries of dominant scholarship on Anglo-Indians in India in general, moving beyond the discourses of colonial history, political rights, and essentialist notions about remembered and classified identities. Requiem for the Living is an attempt to get to the core of this otherwise less discussed community whose rhizomatic roots are spread over and across many fragmented histories. Even in the descriptions of the terrain, we find the milieu of Requiem for the Living being introduced as a land ‘crisscrossed by canals’ with ‘empty lots run over by bushes’ (Miranda 2013, p. 27), thus accentuating the impossibility of a linear, neat history. Here, the colonial history featuring the Portuguese male ancestors becomes at best only an incidental point of departure for the emergence of a hybrid community that had continued to miscegenate, thereby blending into the native population. To a large extent this explains the historical 4  With reference to liturgical practices, Latin Catholics follow the Latin rites; however, in the context of Kerala this description is more nuanced with the identity of caste. Latin Catholics, socially and historically, are ‘newer’ converts to Christianity from lower castes who joined the Catholic Church and are continued to be placed in the lower rungs of caste hierarchy vis-à-vis the ‘traditional’ Roman/Syrian Catholic Christians who were converted in the early centuries from upper/Brahmanical castes. See Fuller (1976) for a detailed discussion.

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as well as emotional distance of the Paranki community from their Portuguese ancestors, which will also be briefly discussed later in the chapter. At the same time, despite extensive intermarriages and blending with local population, the Parankis do not seem to have featured in the socio-­ cultural history of Kerala either. This historical dislocation could perhaps be identified as the most visible casualty in Paranki identity. As historian J. Devika points out in the Introduction to the novella, the Paranki history that the protagonist Osha narrates does not have the usual variables such as ‘social reform and the enlightened male reformer’ (p. xxxv) which are fundamental to Kerala modernity. In Requiem for the Living, apart from the use of Malayalam as mother tongue, which is again a creole variety which is not familiar to all Malayalam speakers, there are very few markers of regional culture. Which is why perhaps there is an overreliance on the mythical and the fantastical throughout the novella culminating in the authentication of sainthood and canonization of a central character by the Vatican. The absence of an official reformist history, followed by their undocumented participation in the cultural awakenings of the twentieth century, also made it almost impossible for the Paranki community to stake any legitimate claims in the regional history. The marginality of the Paranki community, thus, cannot be equated with most other discourses on marginality. This needs to be categorically stated here in order to further highlight the relevance of situating this novella as a text that facilitates cultural recovery. The marginal identity inhabited by the Parankis in Kochi could be accessed and retrieved only through the many acts of remembering and exercises of subversion that a text such as Requiem for the Living initiates.

Remembered Lives: Personal and Collective Memory Requiem on the Living relies entirely on the protagonist’s memory and has the confidence to present an entire community’s history traversing through fragmented and reconstructed events. Narrated in the first person, through nine different strands, this is the story of Osha, a young sacristan, whose ancestral claim to a glorious and fabulous past, which almost borders on the mythical and the magical, is soon to be subsumed by an acute crisis of identity that is personal as well as religious in nature. Osha’s is the ‘eye that sees’, the ‘voice that speaks’, and the ‘mind that maps’ here, in terms of literary narration and focalization. For the same reason, it becomes significant to understand Osha as well as his vantage point. It is revealed to us

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only at the end of the novella that the narrator Osha is lying paralysed, ‘motionless like the one who was not conscious. Not knowing for how much longer…’ (p. 76). This articulation of uncertainty followed by an ellipsis seems to point to a condition of endless wait, a political and existential limbo condition the community at large is passively induced into. Besides, Osha’s physical condition, we may argue, has a bearing on the nature of his memory and what he chooses to remember and narrate and how, foregrounding again the cognitive bias and metonymic memory markers associated with all acts of reconstruction. Osha’s immobile state, which is symbolic of the impasse and stagnation faced by the community, makes him remember only those events of critical nature that led to radical changes in his own self, and by extension the community, accentuating the explicitly embodied and visceral quality of remembering. Besides, men and women in Osha’s family are more invested in continuing the traditional sacristan duties and also in the preservation of religious rituals. Thus, due to the peculiarity and centrality of his family in the community, what Osha remembers and reconstructs becomes definitive to his personal as well as collective identity. In a fascinating study titled ‘Intergenerational Transmission of Values’ (2001), Ute Schönpflug offers the concept of transmission belt, the material, discursive, and affective conditions required to pass on selected codes, values, and knowledge systems in a unique social, economic, and cultural context. Schönpflug’s theory—which takes as its case study intergenerational Turkish families—is particularly relevant for a broader examination of cultural memory and its modes of transmission and consumption. It appears resonant with the disappearance of memory markers with time as depicted in Requiem on the Living whose central protagonist, who embodies intergenerational transmission, is symbolically paralysed. In the novella Osha covers three generations, mapping the degeneration of the Pereira family whose male members are traditionally sacristans of the church. We are unsure of Osha’s age, but he gives the readers some specific pointers in time, recounting events which happened (a) before his birth; (b) a time ‘before his memory’ when he was an infant and ‘yet to teeth’; (c) when he was nearly 12 years old; (d) when/after he turns 18 and is appointed as sacristan. These timelines help us to place the narrative chronologically in the absence of other markers of time. In this context it may be noted that there is absolutely nothing in the narrative through which one can infer the immediate socio-cultural/historical timeline, particulars, or background. Set in a timeless past with a mythical quality, there

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are no markers that could indicate the historical period. This deliberate narrative strategy communicates the vacuum that surrounds the history and identity of Paranki community. In addition, we also identify a set of events which are central to the plot, recurring with a loop-like quality. There are three major events of recurrent episodic quality: (a) Osha’s obsession with the gold key; (b) his father Franso’s sacrilegious and carefree lifestyle; (c) the religious experiences of his grandmother Juana Mammanji and mother Petrina. Interestingly, there are also other life-changing events such as his mother eloping with his sister’s lover, his marriage to Jacintha, his sister’s insanity and unwanted pregnancy, his father hacking his sister to death in front of the entire community in the church, the birth of Osha’s own son, and finally his father’s death. Curiously, these personal tragedies and milestones are presented as incidental occurrences with little or no bearing on the history that Osha is trying to reconstruct. This privileging of a collective and almost mythical identity over a personal one urges us to see Requiem for the Living as more of a community history in which imagination and fabulation precede information and material reality, again foregrounding the unique focal point of fiction in a retelling of a collective identity. A caveat needs to be presented here to also draw attention to the changing attitude of others in the village, to which the narrator Osha remains immune. The absence of other extended members of the family—Franso’s brothers and sisters and their families—from Osha’s narrative is indicative of the selective nature of the crisis represented here. Presumably they, unlike Osha and his immediate family, have adopted a more practical approach by not holding on stubbornly to family vocation or community rituals. Requiem for the Living offers a number of instances where Osha’s grandmother Juana Mammanji emerges as the only living member in the entire community who knows how to perform the rites and rituals to the letter. There is, otherwise, a sense of laxity in the entire community, bordering on indifference, highlighting the combination of articulation and erasure in the reproduction and metonymic preservation of a collective identity. We find those relaxations at work even in the lifestyle of the new vicar (Miranda 2013, p. 26), and the community at large seems perfectly ready to forgo the rigorous traditions which were earlier in place, perhaps handed over from Portuguese ancestors themselves. Interestingly, the vicar himself seems to be indulging in some of the ‘vices’ for which Franso was fired by the previous vicar. Osha also realizes this—‘Had Father Varghese come here earlier, perhaps Pappa would not have been fired from

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the sacristan’s post’ (p. 27). At the same time this laxity does not affect Osha in any way; he continues to overcompensate for the vicar’s ‘vices’ just the way he did for his father. There’s thus a wilfulness inherent in Osha’s tragedy; heightened by his vegetative state and the resignation thereafter. Like metonymy, which becomes a central quality in the selective and biased remembering process, metaphor emerges as a recursive and complex signifier of memory and its absence. The potential of a metaphor to condense an array of information and problematize the same by adding an interpretative frame to it makes it a major marker of memory and remembered identities. In the Requiem for the Living, the gold key that Osha chances upon when he goes to watch a gravedigger at work, along with his father who was overseeing the funeral of a pregnant woman, becomes the central metaphor in the text. Osha even confesses that during all crises within the family, he was thinking only about ‘that gold chaavi’ (p. 29, p. 63) the object which also emerges as one of the central metaphors signifying Osha’s as well as the community’s unending but futile search for fitting solutions. The endless obsession with the key and the search for the lock is not just a futile exercise, but it proves threatening to all forms of real connect and relationships that Osha could have had in all spaces including home and church. When the obsessive search for the lock begins to affect his marital relations, we realize the gravity and intensity of his quest; Osha by then seems to have developed an organic connection with the key, with the key affecting his ability to connect emotionally or physically with anyone or anything else. As he recalls, ‘Those days the very purpose of my travels had been reduced to a search for the lock of that chaavi’ (p. 20), with the key emerging as a Proustian metaphor as well an experiential marker of lost time, while also becoming a signifier of the aspiration of impossible identities. This quest also becomes his only source of comfort during the many tragic occasions in his childhood and early youth, even after the birth of his son. At many levels we see that Osha’s concerns, though inadvertently, are anchored on a collective cultural identity. While narrating the incidents that are related to religion or rituals, even his grandmother’s cult status in the community or his mother’s transformation, Osha relies on collective memory. What we also explore in this chapter is the subconscious way in which Osha seems to map his life on to events which have implications on the larger history of his community rather than his immediate family. To that end Osha is unable to stay focused during any forms of personal

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crisis—he is unable to grieve when tragedy strikes his family in the form of death, enjoy physical relations with his wife Jacintha, or express happiness when his son is born. During all such crucial instances, he seeks refuge in the key, choosing to get lost in the thoughts about the lost lock. Mikhail Bakthin’s notion of chronotope is a useful tool to navigate through the chequered cultural history of the Paranki community that Osha presents before us. In his famous work The Dialogic Imagination, Bakhtin had drawn on Einstein’s theory of relativity to define and describe his concept of the chronotope, as ‘an expression of the inseparability of space and time (time as the fourth dimension of space)’ (Bakhtin 1981, p. 84) that approximates a metaphoric as well as material understanding of lived reality and its representations in literature. Describing how the suddenness and immediacy of the moment and the inhabited slice of time can be combined through the chronotope in literature, Bakhtin offers a conceptual frame particularly suited to engage with remembering and reconstruction in an intersubjective economy of dialogic imagination. The literary chronotope, though borrowed from mathematical and quantum physics framework, emerges in Bakhtin’s analysis much more than mere abstract cognition. As a ‘temporal-spatial expression’ (p. 258), the chronotope contains cognition as well as a flow of signs which invest semantic significance to any experience. Especially relevant as a memory marker and transmission belt as examined by Schönpflug, the liminal capsule of space-­ time becomes a moving vehicle of encoding and inscription whereby ‘every entry into the sphere of meaning is only accomplished through the gates of the chronotope’ (p. 258). As a matrix of space and time that captures the mutable and affective quality of the remembering mind, the chronotope contains the material and abstract cognitive components that characterize collective as well as individual imagination, especially in which fiction, fantasy, and historical reality merge.

Crisis of Masculinity In close correspondence with the decline and decadence of the collective intergenerational identity in Miranda’s novella is the issue of anxious and inadequate masculinities. Osha introduces every member in his family and locates the beginning at a point when his great grandfather Caspar Pereira (referred to as Pappanji) had first arrived in Ponjikkara, a coastal village where the story is also set. Osha is the grandson of Juana Pereira, the matriarch of a very respectable family in the locality whose decline of

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fortunes and reputation informs the central plotline of Miranda’s novella. The lazy inefficiency of his grandfather is set in sharp contrast to his grandmother Juana Mammanji, an extremely skilful and pious woman, who could read as well as write religious pamphlets, who runs the house, manages finances, has the status of a judge, soothsayer and oracle in the community, and later elevated to a saint by the Catholic Church. Osha remembers that though Caspar was a sacristan and ‘officially the head of the household’, it was Mammanji ‘who took the lead’ (Miranda 2013, p. 7) in religious rituals within the house and also the one who decided when the family shop would be closed (p. 9). There seems to be a subversive as well as inherited quality about the performance of gender roles as we find this pattern replicated in Osha’s parents’ lives and relationships, and subsequently in his own as well, with interesting parallels. Osha does not come across as a responsible adult either; rather he comes across as not wanting to assume any agency in life. The way he recalls his marriage with Jacintha is an example, ‘I let myself get married without even being aware of it, the way a cow allows itself to be milked’ (p. 21). He shrinks away from all marital responsibilities, even refusing to consummate his marriage until his mother actively intervenes, and eventually moving out almost permanently due to the nightmares he claims he has only when he has physical relations with his wife Jacintha. He almost never initiates any intimacy with Jacintha, and throughout the narrative we do not find him participating fully in any conversation. He functions merely as an eye, as a memory marker, and a sponge that soaks in all the events and experiences, never desiring any agency except in the control he exercises over the key. Unfortunately, he loses that as well when Jacintha’s mother sells the key in exchange for money for the gold. In a useful aside here, it is worth highlighting that Jacintha and her mother’s inability to see the emotional value in the gold key that dictates Osha’s quest is translated immediately into a practical transaction about the value of gold, again flagging the complex entanglement of matter and metaphor in the novella. Similarly, Jacintha’s father’s excessive obsession with the ‘clay pot covered with red silk’, allegedly handed over to him by a divine lady (p. 38), also had descended into madness, provoking him to do the most impractical things such as digging an enormous pit within the house and eventually abandoning his family for pilgrimage. These insane and impractical men, driven around by their esoterically romantic ambitions, also make the women appear insensitive and even mercenary.

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The men who feature in Osha’s memory, especially his grandfather, father, his father-in-law, and he himself, are emasculated at multiple levels. They fail to perform almost everywhere, coming across as ‘milksops’ or ‘good for nothing’ (p. 4), drunkards, sacrilegious (p. 13), ‘irresponsible’ (p. 17), ‘cursed’ (p. 22), ‘aimless’ (p. 29), sexually dysfunctional (p. 34), and eventually descending into abnormality of different degrees that turns them into pilgrim wanderers or murderers, or leave them paralysed. One needs to note that the yardsticks here are not entirely moral or religious in nature; Osha’s grandfather Caspar, for instance, is a man who ‘had preserved the purity and integrity of sacristan work’ (p. 4), but he is seen as extremely inefficient and good for nothing with no skills whatsoever to establish himself as the ‘head’ of the family. It is his incompetency, the nature of which remains sketchy in Osha’s memory, that results in Juana Mammanji emerging as the respected and powerful matriarch within the family and community. Osha’s father, Franso Pereira, never makes any effort to perform or impress. We are given to understand that he had ‘once lived in joy and peace and plenty’ with his brothers and sister and Pappanji and Mammanji in the tharavad.5 As Osha recalls, ‘after all, it was on seeing that house and its glory and its life that Mamma’s parents from the neighbouring village had her married to Pappa, with lots of money and gold as dowry’ (p. 14). In Osha’s memory, whose reliability cannot be established, it was his mother Petrina’s defiance of Juana Mammanji’s ‘dictatorial and rigid ways, her rules and decrees’ (p. 15) that led to the ‘disapproval’ that his parents then had to face. Franso chooses to leave the tharavad to avoid the escalating conflicts between his mother and his wife, two extremely independent women as we soon gather from the narrative. Osha recollects that Franso ‘ended up following Mamma out of the tharavad’, signalling the complete lack of agency, almost absolving him of any accountability. When Osha comes of age, he complacently witnesses his father’s unacceptably irresponsible ways at work and at home, his mother’s adultery and elopement, and his sister’s helplessness and descent into insanity; however, he continues to remain in awe of his dead grandmother who happens to be his only ‘key’ to everything that has been lost—more importantly, everything that could have been rightly inherited. Osha’s wandering with the gold key in search of the lost lock synchronizes with his 5  Tharavad is the Malayalam word for ‘ancestral home’, originally used mostly within the matrilineal joint family kinship systems prevalent in Hindu Nair communities in Kerala.

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attempts to connect with his grandmother during critical times in his life, even on the first night after his marriage with Jacintha. In that exercise of futility, we find Osha attempting to connect with a glorious past which can be recovered only by carrying on with the traditions and rituals preserved by his grandmother, Juana Mammanji, underscoring the significance of rituals and codes in a metonymic memory-mode. Eventually it is Osha’s mother Petrina, the fallen woman with the condemnable history of adultery and elopement, that becomes the bearer of this tradition—not any of the men who are traditionally and officially entrusted with the sacristan work. And it is Juana Mammanji who is eventually declared a saint by the Vatican, on her remains which are found intact years after her death. Thus, women who are flawed and even dead become saviours of the community here, providing recognition and visibility. This could be seen as a severe blow on the patriarchal structures and religious strictures on which the official identity and definition of the community supposedly rests. We find subtle and ironic challenges to patriarchal systems of control in Osha’s threads of memory. In a telling instance, we are given to understand that Franso had to sell Petrina’s gold in order to buy a ‘new shack’ after moving out of the ancestral house (p. 15). The ancestral house, run by the matriarch Juana Mammanji, is the symbol of patriarchy here, the clutches of which Petrina is happy to escape. Petrina, though liberated in a certain way, leads an unhappy life in that shack which does not have access to even basic facilities like a toilet, and she eventually elopes with a younger man. The event of Petrina’s gold being sold is seen as empowering and urges us to see the transaction in a different light altogether. Osha remembers the disapproval that his mother met with upon her return from a licentious life, but he also notes, ‘Mamma walked confidently into the house bought in her name by selling her gold’ (p. 47). More importantly, Petrina, despite her fallenness, becomes the sole reason for the revival of the shack and the community. Osha acknowledges, ‘This much was true. Had Mamma not come back, that house, small and made of boards as it was, with no one living in it, would have fallen to the termites’ (p. 48). The role played by women of the community in protecting wealth may be noted from the times of Juana Mammanji. Similarly, when Petrina emerges as the next oracle, living out the legacy left behind by her mother-in-law, she is readily received by the community with a popularity that exceeded Juana Mammanji’s. Osha remembers, ‘Of late, people of other religions, and from surrounding villages too, have started to visit Mamma’ (p. 57). Here women become the redeemers of tradition, rituals, reputation, and

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wealth. This subversive gender equation and how they contribute to our understanding of the community’s present and staggering future is also at the heart of this narrative. The women in Requiem for the Living are seen as independent, religious, responsible, and very pragmatic in their approach to various situations. They, with interesting elasticity, seem to conform as well subvert simultaneously, in close correspondence to the narratives of preservation and elisions characterizing the community, its memory markers, and self-­ identity. While the men are traditionally invested with the responsibility of sacristanship, it is the women who recognize the redemptive potential in  this vocation. In Petrina’s case, she even manages to translate this opportunity into financial terms, without compromising her credibility. Notably, the women are co-opted into the Paranki community and culture through marriage, not born into it; despite this the key to redemption and recovery lies with them. Jacintha, whom Osha marries, is from a family of ‘Mappila Latin Christians; who wore thrice-washed full-blouses and mundu, and finger-thick earrings in their upper ears’ (p. 30). Very noticeably, here the markers are sartorial with no inference to any hierarchy whatsoever. This readiness to assimilate has many historical dimensions and social implications. The complex frames of identity crisis, especially among men in Paranki community, cannot perhaps be understood or addressed unless one looks at it as an assimilated Anglo-Indian identity, more eager to blend than to stand out. This signals the anxiety of appropriation as well as what we classify as identity-consumption, whereby the past as well as the future of a fledgling community is strategically selected and designed in order to be aligned to and thereby consume a broader identity-narrative and its associated collective memory. This is especially true for the Parankis as represented in the novella, who have no monolithic memory markers as points of origin as well as pointers to a consistent collective future. Therefore, the Paranki anxiety to consume the broader Anglo-Indian identity operates along the lines of postmemory—the intergenerational quality of memory-consumption operative only through handed down material markers and narratives—while also complicating it further due to the absence of any unique and consolidated genesis or memory-template. The identity-consumption as we define it in this chapter therefore emerges from an entanglement of different collective-memory narratives whereby the more calcified collective memory (the AngloIndian one) is anxiously appropriated with its material markers in order to consume a more constitutionally classified identity.

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An understanding of how the gender question stereotypically plays out in most of the dominant Anglo-Indian representations is a necessary digression here. Lionel Caplan discusses this largely in the context of representations of Anglo-Indian culture and community. He notes: Anglo-Indian delineations of women have been sharpened by contrasting them with males of the community, portrayed as largely emasculated by insufficient education and lack of employment, and beset by problems of drink (and more recently, drugs). Notions of masculinity which placed males in the roles of providers and upholders of the domestic unit, and ultimately, the community, are seen as undermined by circumstances which have their origins in late colonial policies and have been exacerbated following Independence, but which Anglo-Indian men themselves have done little to alleviate. They are thus presented as the foil for Anglo-Indian women. Inverting the negative images of these women propounded in British (and Indian) depictions, Anglo-Indian discourses highlight the contrast between the accomplished woman and what is presented as the stereotypically incompetent Anglo-Indian male. (Caplan 2000, p. 889)

What Caplan draws attention to here is a pertinent problem in some Anglo-Indian discourses and stereotypical representations in popular culture, wherein the emasculation and incompetency of men are presented as dramatic and negative inversions of women who are morally and ethically flawed. In his well-researched publication, Caplan also quite persuasively identifies the colonial biases on which these notions of morality and gender constructs have been founded. This narrative has become negatively reinforced in fictional and cinematic portrayals of Anglo-Indian men and women as well. However, we refer to Caplan here to illustrate that such a framework, which would perhaps be useful to understand gender roles and their representation in most Anglo-Indian communities, cannot possibly work in the context of Parankis. The gendered identities in Requiem for the Living signal compelling departures from most received understandings of Anglo-Indianness. Significantly, even the patriarchal masculinity which is at work in the relations presented in the novella is of a fragmented nature, almost on the verge of collapse. Most importantly, there is very little that could be traced to identifiable colonial or regional biases, thus adding fluidity to the already complex performance of gender. Requiem for the Living and Osha’s life could be primarily read as the story of Paranki men and their inability to assert their identity at almost all levels. The overarching narrative is a document of Paranki men’s failures

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and losses. The central locus of this failure, crisis, and degeneration—all of which exemplify most in their gendered identity as men, and in roles as sons, brothers, and husbands—could be located in the collective identity that Osha describes early on in the narrative when he begins to talk about his father: I don’t know how my Pappa came to hate sacristan work and the Paranki race so much. So what if we call ourselves Parankis and have these surnames, none of us knows English, nor have trousers or coats or shoes. Dark skin, rough, shrunken cheeks, bloated eyelids, centipede moustache, baldness, rotten teeth, pot belly and dwarfish build; these are the common features of the men in our family. When the coastal people—the lowest of low in wealth, education, caste, and living standards—were converted, all that they were really given were some four hundred surnames. Yours too are among those; this venom was injected into us by none other than some suited-booted English-speaking Parankis. Paranki scum, with only surnames to show for themselves! (pp. 12–13)

The hatred and frustration towards work and race operates in intricate ways here, making it difficult to separate one from the other. The Portuguese surnames, religious vocation, and the coastal location only seem to have further deteriorated the community’s living standards, leaving them with fewer options for upward social mobility. The inheritance from Portuguese ancestors, such as their surnames, is equated to venom as  the absence of other  markers such as English language and Western lifestyle makes these exotic surnames appear almost ridiculous.6 There is a caste-like inescapability in the inherited nature of this occupation coupled with the backwardness of coastal regions, making it more like a bondage continuing into generations, especially if the members of the community are adamant to stay rooted to their traditions and rituals. This is where the history of miscegenation of Portuguese colonizers and the troubled identity of this creole community of Parankis becomes pertinent. In spite of strong historical evidence of their distinctly traceable foreign origin from the Portuguese, perhaps due to the stigma of subsequent 6  Incidentally, there are a number of Malayalam films where villainous roles are assigned to Anglo-Indian characters with names that sound exotically foreign. For instance, ‘Hello Mr Pereira’ is an iconic dialogue originally from the movie Love in Singapore, which then became repeatedly used in popular culture for comic effect. https://www.news18.com/news/ india/hello-mr-pereira-458800.html.

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miscegenation that resulted from male immigration (Jarnagin 2011, p. 20), their identity in official documents and histories was always sketchy and troubled. Once the Portuguese left or lost dominance in the regions, the children of these interracial marriages mixed with the local population and remained unaffected with Western or Indian ideas of purity; however, the social stigma stayed and left behind a permanent marker of miscegenation and the corresponding hybridity of identity. Accordingly, their articulation of Paranki identity was of a different scale altogether from the beginning with no particular affinity for the European ancestors, no longing to return to ‘homeland’, unlike the Anglo-Indians of British or French descent. There is scholarly evidence suggesting that in the early twentieth century the descendants of Portuguese traders and administrators were not classified as Anglo-Indians; they were loosely referred to as ‘mixedbloods’ whose ‘male ancestors were modern Europeans’ (Hedin 1934, p. 166). This crisis had spilled over into official documentations as well; for instance, from the 1931 census onwards, they were loosely referred to as ‘Indian Christians’ or ‘firangis’/‘Parankis’ and sometimes even as ‘Anglo-Indian’ or none of these. This obviously led to an increased invisibility and decline of the community, along with the gradual disappearance of their specific religious, cultural, and linguistic markers which the text in discussion particularly highlights. Unlike most male immigrants who were part of the French and British colonial regimes, the Portuguese seemed to have mixed extensively with native lower caste women. Havik and Newitt in the introduction to the edited collection Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire (2015) talk about ‘the much-celebrated policy of intermarriage and the prevalence of irregular unions between Portuguese men and Indian women’ (p. 7).7 In the same discussion, they also additionally note that ‘the Hindu caste system was strong enough to prevent the emergence of a large LusoIndian population’ (p. 7) which also explains their marginalized minority status.8 As Kerala historian Devika notes, ‘the Parankis bear traces of not 7  There is sufficient historical evidence suggesting that Governor Alfonso de Albuquerque in the 1510s encouraged Portuguese men to marry Indian women to help establish Portuguese authority and also to actively promote proselytization. The British empire too initially considered these liaisons acceptable; however, by the 1800s due to the influx of Christian missionaries and widening racial chasms, such interracial transgressions were seen as morally as well as politically unacceptable (see Havik and Newitt). 8  Havik and Newitt, referring to Luso-Indians in Goa, quote Orlando Ribeiro’s study which documents that ‘only a few women whose caste condemned them to low social status,

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only the Portuguese culture and lower-caste cultures prevalent in Kerala, but also elements from South-east Asia, especially Java and Malacca, which were prominent centres of Dutch and Portuguese trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ (in Miranda 2013, p. xxiv). This severe compromising of the ‘purity’ of bloodlines, resulting in the ‘impossibility of asserting miscegenated identities’ (p. xxix), distances this hybrid community equally from Anglo-Indians of English/French descent as well from any other lower castes within Kerala. Complicating this identity further this hybridity has been infused into language as well—their ‘own’ language is neither English nor Malayalam but Cochin Creole Portuguese which is almost dead (Pradeep 2010). In multiple ways, the marginality of the Parankis, historically, culturally, and linguistically, becomes unique with no known history of political leadership or social reform ever being offered for their uplift. Steeped in superstitions, myths, miracles, and indigenous healing throughout the narrative, except for the fleeting appearance of the policemen who arrest Osha’s father for murder (Miranda 2013, p. 42), we do not find anything symbolizing modernity. Interestingly, Osha’s memory even has instances where he had spent his childhood in a shack without toilet, bathing and defecating in the open (p. 17). This is an anomaly in a state like Kerala whose history is supposedly steeped in sustained reformist agendas from political, cultural, and religious circles. It would not be wrong to say that this narrative complicates the story of Kerala modernity itself by presenting a community which is an outlier in all respects. As the translator points out in his note, ‘the world described in the novella is unfamiliar even to readers of the original Malayalam’ (p. xviii).

Markers of Paranki Identity Church and its activities are at the centre of this text, operating as a focal point for Osha as well as the community. The church as a public space becomes a major reservoir of collective memory and social identity, while the religious rituals emerge as micro markers of ways in which the transmission belt of memory operates through mutation, retention, and rejection. Caspar, his grandfather, during his vocation as the sacristan had ‘preserved the purity and integrity’ (p. 4) of his work. Franso, his father who takes over as sacristan, hates the job and never bothers to even ring sought to marry these foreigners to gain upward mobility’ (pp. 198–199).

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the church bell thrice. He steals from church offerings, gets drunk during duty hours, pilfers coins from church, sells Petrina’s gold, and has no conscience to be dutiful at work or at home. For Osha, who begins participating in sacristan duties quite early on to compensate for the laxity in his father, church becomes his only anchoring point. He starts spending the nights in the church premises, away from his pregnant wife Jacintha after she sells off the gold key. He expresses his emotions using church symbols, like he does when he compares his wife Jacintha to ‘a church bell that had never been rung!’ (p. 34), highlighting the complex merge of sacred and secular signifiers in Requiem for the Living and how such symbols and orders mix in the remembering mind. There is a semantic superficiality that the descriptions of religious rituals seem to acquire in this narrative, which tells us much about the cynicism of the narrator as well as the flexible religious and moral systems within the community. For instance, when the readers are told about a certain church festival in Arthungal,9 right at the outset of the narrative, Osha remembers to tell the readers about the real intent behind the religious rituals. This also highlights one of the key features of collective memory around religiously generated identities, namely, how the religious and the sacrilegious, the pure, and the profane orders often share the same signifiers and symbols in an affective economy informed by remembering, re-appropriation, and forgetting. It was a custom for the whole family to go together for the Arthungal Church festival every year…. By the time they returned from Arthungal, their purses would be empty, having spent all on household goods, coloured candy, sugarcane, fries, puffed rice, date fruit, glass bangles, toys, and much else besides …. Before leaving the younger men would visit the Arthungal beauties, who would be waiting for them on the beach; the real purpose of their pilgrimage, after all. When they got back, friends who hadn’t gone for the pilgrimage would ask, “Dirtied your dongs, did you?”. (p. 4)

The event of pilgrimage here becomes the legitimate excuse for all kinds of consumptions and socializing, regardless of gender. The absence of any moralistic or judgemental tone here is particularly noteworthy. This, we 9  For further contemporary reference on the historical significance of Arthungal on Paranki identity, this news link will be useful: https://english.mathrubhumi.com/features/socialissues/the-arrival-of-portuguese-and-origin-of-anthrappers-1.29766. Accessed on 8 December 2019.

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realize, is not because of Osha’s typical absent-mindedness alone; the entire community seems to be accommodative of various kinds of ‘transgressions’ from both men and women. In fact, even later on in the narrative, there is a nonchalant casualness with which Petrina’s elopement, Ida’s pregnancy, Franso hacking Ida to death, and Petrina’s return after Ida’s death are presented. Osha, throughout these occurrences, continues to be obsessed about the gold key alone, and the community at large, in parallel, seems obsessively connected with rituals and their redemption and preservation. That the key is found during the grave-digging for a funeral, an event of public significance, needs to be underscored here. Osha continues to privately and secretively ruminate on the key, again, almost entirely during such public or ritualistic events such as wedding and funeral; or during personal tragedies which for Osha also occurs publicly as seen in mother’s elopement, sister’s insanity, and murder followed by his father’s arrest and eventually death; or before and after Jacintha initiates physical intimacy. The centrality that Osha’s family assumes, particularly through the powerful roles the women in the family play in preserving the rituals despite the men’s indifference and inefficiency, in this community history is also significantly related to this. In the narrative, as the title also very explicitly announces, funeral becomes the most important rite around which Osha’s family and the extended community bond as well as reinstate their identity. Deaths, more than births, become events that bring them together in intimate ways. Osha recollects that his grandmother’s book had noted down in great detail every rite and ritual to be followed during a funeral. Significantly, more than three pages in the text are devoted to the description of funeral rites, as per the writings from Juana Mammanji’s book. This obsession with funeral rites, the attention given to preserve the remains, tells much about the community’s efforts to hold on to what is soon passing away. Ironically, though Osha obsessively recollects and narrates the rites, it so happens that neither his sister nor his father is able to receive the ‘cares or prayers’ (p. 47) that the dead ones usually get. His sister is not buried in the family tomb, and his father’s funeral is subsumed behind the overwhelming attention that Juana Mammanji’s remains received. This obsession with ‘remains’ becomes almost life-defining for the community, towards the end of the narrative, when the family tomb is unearthed to bury Franso and the crowd gathered around there find ‘Mammanji’s body lay there in the exact state it had been in when she was buried! … all of it intact’ (p.  66). The most significant event, of Osha chancing upon the

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gold key, also occurs just before the funeral of a pregnant woman whose grave-digging Osha watches along with his father. The description of the grave-digging scene is particularly interesting with a Hamletian carnivalesque ring: ‘Every time a grave is dug, there are always people who gather to watch and enjoy themselves. They would examine the remains in the old grave very closely. The sight of skulls, especially, was a gratifying experience for them…’ (pp.  19–20), highlighting the close and often uneasy proximity between life and death, preservation and annihilation, remembering and forgetting in the novella. Notably, during those years when Jacintha’s father was wandering the church grounds at Velankanni after abandoning the family, Velankanni had symbolically transformed into a ‘grave’ which she and her mother visited for the annual memorial prayers (p. 40). In this novella of 76 pages, we find a number of pages devoted to long descriptions of clothing, food, and objects. This points to the significance of these markers in setting apart, defining, anchoring the Paranki identity which otherwise has been mapped only marginally in socio-cultural historiography. Interestingly, Osha’s earliest description begins with, ‘Though we were Parankis, the men in our family weren’t the kind who wore trousers’ (p. 2) followed by minute details about the dress code and accessories adopted by men and women in the community. The sartorial descriptions are clearly and distinctively different from any traditional or modern clothing that is otherwise prevalent in the region except for the men’s ‘mundu’ which is used across Kerala. Significantly, the accessories are also organically connected with rituals, belief, and church. ‘Everyone wore the scapular called vetheenja; you rarely saw them without it. They were bought by the lot and blessed at the Arthungal Church where people would go with their families for the yearly festival. Wearing that vetheenja, Mammanji would say, made it easy for women to give birth; and it protected everyone from ghosts, spirits, demons and fear’ (p.  3). There is a very conscious attempt here to retain a visible difference by not wearing what is otherwise considered modern. Interestingly, unlike the traditional bounds of the church, here the church and its rituals are not alienating for women. On the contrary, we find Juana Mammanji becoming the centre of all rituals across the community, emerging as the only one who knows what to do during birth, marriage, pregnancy, and death, and eventually being recognized even by the Vatican. The women become not just the carriers of traditions but the creators as well. Some of these rituals could perhaps be traced back and

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linked with the prevalent caste practices. Strikingly enough, the celebration of Christmas and New Year, which are otherwise central to Anglo-­ Indian experiences, is conspicuous by its absence here. The non-urban settings and the distancing from modernity and contemporariness may be seen as deliberate strategies to showcase the differentials in the markers that form Paranki identity. Legitimacy and recognition do not come from any familiar locales, but from the Vatican, that too for declaring the sainthood of the dead grandmother, further complicating the already splintered identity. Despite having witnessed his dead grandmother’s veneration, Osha falls into a paralysed vegetative state; at the end of the novella, even at the moment of witnessing his father-in-law’s return from pilgrimage into domesticity, Osha continues to remain motionless, ‘not knowing for how much longer’. Osha tells the story of three generations, including his own. His grandfather Caspar was not cursed (p.  4), but he was never respected for his profession and could never run the small family shop or his family; his father Franso deteriorates further by being visibly cursed and thrown out of his sacristanship. The failures in Franso’s family life are also more visible as his wife Petrina leaves him for a younger man, Xavy, his daughter Ida turns into an insane prostitute, and he is eventually sentenced to prison for hacking to death his own daughter, inside the church, in front of the entire community. Xavy, maybe a contemporary of Osha, is presented as a womanizer and pimp; and Osha’s father-in-law left home in search of a treasure which he received apparently through divine intervention, and lost as well, due to his disobedience. Interestingly, Osha who is also lost, dysfunctional, and erratic in his own ways finds his kindred soul not in his father or grandfather but in his father-in-law who had left home and was wandering away in Velankanni, a famous shrine and pilgrim centre on the coast just south of Pondicherry. The crisis of identity here becomes more of a crisis of masculinity, the nature of which becomes more complicated when trapped within a miscegenated, and hence lowly community which is also in the lower rungs of economic, and arguably, caste hierarchies. Why is such a narration relevant and how does this narrative complement as well as complicate the layered discourses on Anglo-Indian identity in India? On the one hand, this is the story of a community whose identity, sustenance, and future are at stake due to the weak and dissolute men. On the other hand, this story opens up the possibilities of recovery and revival through broken but resilient women who rise above the potent institutions of patriarchy, including family and church. The lives and struggles of

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Juana, Petrina, Ida, and Jacintha, Osha’s grandmother, mother, sister, and wife, respectively, exemplify this alternate path to recovery which Osha and his male ancestors fail to even identify.

Conclusion Requiem for the Living is perhaps the first ever insider narrative to emerge from the Paranki community in Kerala. The text challenges most commonly held notions about Anglo-Indianness, thereby signalling the need to understand the many possibilities of heterogeneity and differences within this minority community. In this close examination of the text, we have attempted to particularly engage with some significant departures that help us locate the fragmented and splintered Paranki identity, which makes an effort to assert itself despite miscegenation, and the deliberate distancing from Western/foreign origins as well as markers. The novella gives us the impression that for most members even within the Pereira family (from Osha’s father’s side), it is perhaps easier to forego the Paranki identity and surnames and move on. The Paranki identity that Miranda seeks to foreground through the character of Osha is unique in terms of how his failing memory and embodiment correspond to the decadence in the intergenerational quality of memory-transmission and identity-­ preservation in the text. The gritty realism in Requiem for the Living offers an earthly quality to the representation of a complex community, without recourse to any meta-fictional strategies of narration. Instead, what is depicted is a state of stasis and crisis, which is individual as well as collective in quality. In doing so, Miranda’s novella highlights the complexities concealed by any uncritical understanding of marginal identity and the ontology of marginality, whereby the fault lines within the constitutionally classified Anglo-Indian community are foregrounded with all their aspirations and anxieties. Through what we define as identity-consumption, the Paranki community as represented in Miranda’s fiction situates itself in reflection to the broader Anglo-Indian identity despite its fundamental differences and departures from the same historically as well as culturally. Essentially a story about liminality and loss, about the twilight-territories between unbecoming and re-becoming at individual as well as collective levels, Miranda’s Requiem for the Living richly deserves the readerly and academic attention it receives today.

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Rao, V.  D. (2014). Cultures of Memory in South Asia: Orality, Literacy and the Problem of Inheritance. Springer. Ricoeur, P. (2000). Memory, History, Forgetting. University of Chicago Press. Ute Schönpflug. (2001). Intergenerational Transmission of Values: The Role of Transmission Belts. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 23(3): 174–185. 15. Whitehead, A. (2008). Memory. Cambridge University Press. Wright, R.  D. (1997). The Shattering of Cultural Identity: The Anglo-Indian Community in Rural India. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 2(1), 43–58. Zacharia, P. (2014). Silent Voices. The Hindu. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-­reviews/silent-­voices/article5876012.ece.

CHAPTER 16

Daivathinte Vikruthikal: Homelessness and Fragmented Identities of Indo-French Families in Mahé, Post-1954 Sreya Ann Oommen

The social conditions that prevailed in the French colonies in India during the post-independence period, including the challenges experienced by the Indo-French community in post-independence India, rarely find prominence in Indian literature and media narratives. The Indo-French community in Mahé,1 one of the five French provinces in colonial India, Mukundan’s novels provide a history of colonialism unavailable in a historian’s oeuvre (Colonialism, Culture, and Resistance 150) Were we this unwanted in the Mahéan soil?—Lenin Rajendran, Daivathinte Vikruthikal 1  Mahé, located in Kerala, is a district of the Union Territory of Pondicherry in India. In Malayalam, the place is also known as Mayyazhi and is named after the eponymous river as the place is situated at the mouth of the river. Mahé and other former French provinces became part of Indian Union in 1954. This chapter would refer to the place as Mahé, except for the quotes from the novel.

S. A. Oommen (*) University of Delhi, New Delhi, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_16

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is one among those groups that are least represented in the official and fictional accounts in both India and France. M. Mukundan (1942–), a Sahitya Academy award winner from Mahé, is among the very few voices that raise the issue of Indo-French identity in fiction. Lenin Rajendran’s (1952–2019) film, Daivathinte Vikruthikal (1992), an adaptation of Mukundan’s Malayalam novel of the same name (1989), portrays the social and psychological problems faced by the people of Indo-French ancestry who opted to stay back in India even after the French left India in 1954.2 The novel and the film explicate that when the French receded, the Indo-French community in Mahé faced a dilemma where they found it difficult to define their space in independent India. This chapter examines the fictional representation of this situation by Mukundan in Daivathinte Vikruthikal and its visual depiction by Lenin Rajendran to locate and analyse the portrayal of Mahéan Indo-French community. This work explores the colonial and postcolonial history of Mahé to analyse how the Indo-French identity, both experienced and projected, is constructed as well as fragmented within the postcolonial Mahé. The Indo-French can be located within the definition of Anglo-Indian as per the Constitution of India. According to Article 366(2), an Anglo Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only.

The chapter uses ‘Indo-French’ while referring to Anglo-Indians in Mahé as the story focuses only on Anglo-Indians of French descent. It explores the problematised postcolonial identity of the Indo-French in Mahé, a consequence of French assimilative policies that aimed to prevent the formulation of absolute identities, as represented by Alphonsachen, the local magician of Mahé and the central Indo-French character in the narrative, and his family. It further analyses the identity conflict with respect to the occupied and imagined geographical spaces, post-1954. The chapter also examines the sense of homelessness that prevailed among the Indo-French 2  The novel received the Sahitya Academy Award (1992), and the film received many awards including the Kerala State Film Award for the best film and the best story (1992). The screenplay of the film was written by M. Mukundan and directed by Lenin Rajendran.

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in Mahé by analysing their postcolonial experience as depicted in Daivathinte Vikruthikal. While the novel presents the microhistory of Mahé in the postcolonial era,3 the film refines and further develops the historical thread of the Indo-­ French in Mahé by elevating Alphonsachen4 to the role of the protagonist in the film. By placing Mukundan’s fiction and Rajendran’s adaptation within the colonial and decolonising phases of Mahé, the chapter examines the portrayal of the Indo-French identity by a resident of Mahé.5 It also briefly addresses the French colonial history of Mahé to examine the historical reasons that led to the cultural and psychological assimilation of the Indo-French to the collective of the ‘people of Mayyazhi’ or mayyazhikkar and the subsequent postcolonial experience where the Indo-­ French felt unwelcome as one of them, as depicted in Daivathinte Vikruthikal.6 The renowned Indian historian K.N. Panikkar’s7 (1936–) words, ‘Mukundan’s novels provide a history of colonialism unavailable in a historian’s oeuvre’, emphasise the novelist’s role in filling some major gaps in postcolonial records about Mahé and its citizens (Panikkar 2010, p. 150). Mahé, a small town in Puducherry that is surrounded by Kannur

3  According to the brochure for the October 1999 conference, ‘Microhistory: Advantages and Limitations for the Study of Early American History’, conducted by the University of Connecticut, microhistories ‘reveal the fundamental experiences and mentalités of ordinary people that broad analyses of nations so often conceal’. The brochure defines microhistory as ‘accounts of hitherto obscure people and events’ that ‘concentrates on the intensive study of particular lives, communities, and unusual events as prisms for understanding larger cultural and social structures’. See: http://oieahc.wm.edu/conferences/micro/ accessed on 27 March 2019. 4  The novel refers to the protagonist as Alphonsachen, a Malayali version of Alphonse. Maggi refers to her husband as Alphonse throughout the novel and the film. 5  As Mukundan was the scriptwriter for the film, the chapter uses the word ‘author’ with respect to both the novel and the film. 6  The English translation of the text uses the phrase ‘people of Mayyazhi’ and the Malayalam coinage for the same is ‘mayyazhikkar’. Adding a poetic quality to the text, Mukundan combines several entities to the word Mayyazhi, for instance, sunlight (veyil) in Mayyazhi becomes Mayyazhiveyil. Keeping up the spirit of the text and the film, I intend to use the word mayyazhikkar and mayyazhikkaran, its singular form while referring to the collective of the residents of Mayyazhi. The chapter enquires how the Indo-French experienced the feeling of not being part of the collective after 1954. 7  K.N. Panikkar’s works include Culture, Ideology and Hegemony – Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in Colonial India (2002) and Before the Night Falls (2002).

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district on three sides and Kozhikode on one side,8 is the setting for some of Mukundan’s early works including Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil [On the Banks of Mayyazhi] (1974) and Daivathinte Vikruthikal [God’s Mischief] (1989). Mukundan traces the changes in interpersonal relationships among the ‘people of Mayyazhi’ after the French left its shores: In Malayalam literature of the post-colonial period, the interrogation of colonialism as an intellectual cultural or political phenomenon is very rarely attempted. An outstanding exception to this general trend are the two novels by M. Mukundan—On the Banks of the Mayyazhi and God’s Mischief. Both these novels, in a way, underscore the colonial experience and how it formed the defining force in the social and interpersonal relations of the people. (Panikkar 1999)

While Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil focuses on the social unsettling during the time of independence in Mahé, Daivathinte Vikruthikal depicts the changes in the society during its decolonising phase, delving deep into individual lives. The historicity and historicality of Daivathinte Vikruthikal are instrumental in imagining Mahé’s history from the perspective of a Mahéan.9 Mukundan records the dilemma faced by the Indo-French when the French decided to leave the settlement in 1954. Four of the five French settlements in India, Mahé, Yanam, Karaikal, and Pondicherry, then opted to be part of the Union Territory of Pondicherry, upholding the relevance of their connected histories and shared culture of its citizens.10 Mukundan’s works elucidate the nuances of cultural interaction between the French and Mahéan, through his characters. The French presence in Mahé, largely due to their policies of assimilation, was often seen as detrimental to  Kannur and Kozhikode are districts in Northern Kerala.  In ‘Interpretation and the Problem of Intention of the Author’, H.G. Gadamer elucidates how the reader is always already affected by history in the process of comprehending a historical phenomenon. E.D.  Hirsch posits how historicity is different from historicality. Gadamer’s historicity is a quality that has to change with time. Hirsch suggests that the concept of historicality claims that a meaning can be stabilized only by historical intention. 10  While Chandernagore merged with West Bengal, the other four districts of the Union Territory of Pondicherry were united through the Treaty of Cession of 1956: ‘The Establishments will keep the benefit of the special administrative status which was in force prior to 1 November 1954. Any constitutional changes in this status which may be made subsequently shall be made after ascertaining the wishes of the people’ (Article II). 8 9

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Mahé’s history as French culture became an integral part of Mahé’s cultural fibre even decades after Mahé ceased being a French colony. This is substantiated in the words of Alfred Martineau (1857–1941), former Governor of French establishments in India in The Origins of Mahé of Malabar (2004): ‘As the happy people[s] or the people[s] devoted to all the despotisms, Mahé did not have any history, when the hazards of our politics or the fatality of our ambitions conducted us to wish to found an establishment at the coast of Malabar in 1721’ (Martineau, p. 8). In order to examine the postcolonial experience of the Indo-French, this chapter also seeks to comprehend the factual aspects of French history in India alongside the fictional narratives of the novel and the film.

Colonial Mahé The novel unfolds the story of a place—Mahé, by weaving various narrative threads together. The novel is set in post-independent Mahé, with the late 1970s being the starting point for most of the subplots. There are also flashbacks to the colonial era as well as the 1950s and 1960s. Mahé, a piece of land at the mouth of the Mayyazhi river, was obtained by the French East India Company in 1721 with a right to keep in place a garrison. According to G.B. Malleson,11 in order to compensate for the loss of the post in Surat, the French secured Mahé on the Malabar Coast on following the suggestion of Bertrand Francis Mahé de La Bourdonnais; and Maihi was renamed as French Mahé to honour this young captain. The French rule in Mahé reconfigured its political and social climate which also assimilated the French culture into Indian soil. The two centuries of French colonisation were decisive in the lives of the Mahéan after the French left their shores. The French government had introduced the facility of the optant, whereby those availing the facility could become French citizens within a period of six months from the day of the Treaty of Session, that is, 16 August 1962, and could settle either in France or in India while maintaining the citizenship.12 The government also introduced other policies whereby those from the Indian French 11  George Bruce Malleson (1825–1898) served as an English officer in India. His works include History of the Indian Mutiny (1857–8), History of the French in India (1893), and The Decisive Battles of India (1888). 12   Citizenship (Pondicherry) Order, 1962: http://www.refworld.org/docid/ 3ae6b52dc.html.

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colonies could receive French pensions.13 On 1 November 1954 a de facto transfer of power was implemented, and Mahé, along with its French possessions, was handed over to the Indian government. The de jure (Latin word that means ‘in law’) transfer of power occurred on 16 April 1962. Mahé along with Karaikal, Yanam, and Pondicherry merged into the Union territory of Pondicherry rather than merging into the nearby states, as the mayyazhikkar wanted to maintain the remnants of their French history distinct from that of the rest of India. Despite the provisions offered by the French government in terms of citizenship, the French assimilative policies adversely affected the lives of the people of various categories including the Indo-French and the Indians who opted for French citizenship. According to a 2017 report in The Week, there are 4678 French citizens in Puducherry (Paul, p. 1). But even with advanced technology and database, accessing details about the Indo-French in Mahé is mostly impossible. In terms of the efforts to assimilate with the native population while preserving their identity, the experiences of the Indo-French can be considered to be quite similar to that of the Indo-French population in Kerala,14 but their experiences remain largely undocumented. The characters of Daivathinte Vikruthikal, the novel and the film, assume significance at this juncture with respect to absolute and fragmented identities.

Daivathinte Vikruthikal: The Novel and the Film Mukundan creates the microhistory of Mahé during its transitory phase, through the lives of the mayyazhikkar across different strata of the society which include the Indo-French, Alphonsachen, and his family, who face the dilemma of choosing either France or India as their home. Mukundan organically weaves in the various threads to depict the changes in postcolonial Mahé. The novel also depicts how the attitude of the mayyazhikkar gradually changes from reverence to ridicule in their approach towards the 13  A study by Animesh Rai in 2003–2005 suggests that there are presently about 8000 Indians of French nationality in the Union Territory of Pondicherry and about 2000 of them receive French Pensions. In April 2017 French presidential elections, around 5200 French Nationals from Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahé, and Yanam exercised their franchise. While the records of the French in Mahé are available, there is limited access to the Indo-French in Mahé as their number is believed to have considerably diminished. 14  Mahé is part of the Union territory of Pondicherry/Puducherry although the Mahéans share language and culture with Keralites.

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Indo-French through various events and characters. However, in the film, the narrative limits its focus to those events of the novel that are relevant in examining the depiction of Indo-French lives. In the novel, Alphonsachen and his wife Maggi madamma,15 and their two children, Michael and Elsie, stay back in Mahé after decolonisation. Although Maggi wanted to leave for France in one of the many ships that carried the French, the Indian, and the Indo-French who desired French citizenship,16 Alphonsachen’s undying love for Mahé forces Maggi to stay with her husband. Despite Maggi’s repeated accusation and rebukes for opting to stay back in India, Alphonsachen unsuccessfully tries to blend in as a part of the mayyazhikkar collective as Mayyazhi transitions towards its postcolonial phase.17 An illustration of this transition includes the episode where, both in the novel and in the film, Phalgunan, the son of a mayyazhikkaran Karuthakannan who returned from France on a vacation, takes revenge on Alphonsachen. He makes Alphonsachen perform a magic show in front of a private audience in his house. In colonial Mahé, Alphonsachen’s magic shows were preformed exclusively at the elite French households. As a young boy, Phalgunan was beaten off the wall of Mooppan Sayiv’s (a French citizen who was the chief administrator of French Mayyazhi) bungalow for watching the magic show held at the  A common term that is used to address a female foreigner in Malayalam.  The provision of optant that was available for the people of French territory of Pondicherry before 1962. They were eligible for obtaining either a French or an Indian citizenship. 15 16

The Citizenship (Pondicherry) Order, 1962, provided that every French national born in Pondicherry and domiciled therein or elsewhere in India on 16 August 1962 was to be a citizen of India from that date. The option to retain French nationality was given by making a declaration to that effect within six months…Parallel provisions also existed for the citizenship of minors…The minor has been given the right to recover his French nationality, on attaining maturity, through another declaration. (Ko 102) The people in the French occupied areas of India had the option to be French citizens while living in India. French nationals in India voted for the French presidential election (2017). Neither the novel nor the film clearly indicates whether it was the Indian or French nationality that Alphonsachen opted but he is projected as someone who is a space of convergence for Indian and French cultures. But Alphonsachen’s son Michael, who was a minor when the optant was introduced, opts French citizenship and leaves for France. 17  The portrayal of Maggi’s longing for France and the life she could have had is accompanied by operatic music as the background score in Lenin Rajendran’s adaptation.

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administrator’s residence, without permission or access. By making Alphonsachen perform magic on his demand, in his home, Phalgunan reveals at the end of the show that his intention was to avenge the pain he faced as a child and the humiliation which he harboured for several years. In the novel and the film, Alphonsachen leaves Phalgunan’s premises teary eyed. The incident makes Alphonsachen realise the extent to which his status in Mayyazhi has deteriorated. In the film adaptation, Alphonsachen’s appearance is used to delineate the shifts in the approach of the people of Mahé towards the Indo-French from the colonial to the postcolonial times. He is depicted initially as a well-groomed individual with neatly adjusted hair and coat and suit with a bow that is on point. On the other hand, Alphonsachen’s depiction in the postcolonial era looks impoverished and ragged, having lost all privileges and respect that he enjoyed in the colonial era. Lenin Rajendran, while adapting the novel into film, adopts Mukundan’s technique of flashbacks to delineate the colonial Mahé where the Indo-French lived a life of luxury. This technique enables a comparison between colonial and postcolonial Mahé and also depicts the depreciated condition of Indo-French in the postcolonial era. Many plots in the novel, including those that narrated the changes in the socio-economic scenario of Mahé when the mayyazhikkar found jobs in France and the Gulf, become subplots in the film. While the accepted history of the Indo-French, with reference to the Indo-French in the novel and the film, is very similar, the film exclusively focuses on the Indo-­ French, whereas the postcolonial Mayyazhi itself emerges as the protagonist in the novel. Interestingly, Arumpurayil Kadungan, a prominent mayyazhikkaran in the novel, emerges as the sole villain in the film representing the forces that are operating in the Mayyazhi community against the Indo-French. The impoverished state of Alphonsachen who lost his importance as the magician of Mayyazhi forces him to take loans from Kadungan. On failing to promptly repay the loan, Kadungan gradually takes control of Alphonsachen’s life and owns his equipment for the magic shows. He even tries to blackmail Elsie for sexual favours in return for Alphonsachen’s family bungalow. But when Elsie reaches Kadungan’s house, Shivan and his friends, representatives of the radical communist wave that was spreading across Kerala in the period, murder Kadungan for

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the atrocities he committed.18 The film ends with a frame that suggests Alphonsachen’s suicide—his hat lying on the beach having been washed ashore along with the sugar candies that he used to give to the children in Mayyazhi. The trajectory of the Alphonsachen’s life and by extension that of his family is a fictional depiction of the consequences of the assimilative policies adopted by the French colonial masters. The adverse effects of those policies on the lives of the Indo-French and their status in the society, and their identity crisis, particularly in the postcolonial period, are also explored in the novel as well as the film. The following section addresses the French history of Mahé to locate both narratives—found in the novel and the film—within this context.

Assimilative Policies of French Government and Prevention of Absolute Identities A. Suresh’s19 research (2008) on the politics and social conflicts of French India elaborates how the control of the French trading posts in India moved between Paris and London after the Treaty of Paris in 1763.20 In 1814, when the French settlements were returned to France, there were only five comptoirs or territories remaining under French, and these were Chandernagore, Pondicherry, Yanam, Karaikal, and Mahé. The supremacy of Britain in India reduced the status of these territories to that of mere trading ports (Suresh 1). The French Third Republic was committed to the policy of assimilation through institutional devices considering ‘the idea of gradual assimilation of colonies to metropole France as the true goal of colonial administration’ (p. 2). The assimilation process was not only intended to extend the geographical area of the French Republic but also focussed on associating both the Indian and the French province at the cultural level. Significant efforts were invested to assimilate the colonies to the French way of life. 18  The 1950s is an important period for the communist history of Kerala. The period witnessed youngsters in the party actively being part of the movement against established hierarchical structures: a reason why Kadungan, a mayyazhikkaran landlord, was attacked. 19  A. Suresh’s PhD thesis ‘Politics and Social Conflicts in French India’, submitted at the Department of History, Pondicherry University explores the events of Colonial Mahé. 20  The Treaty of Paris of 1763 marked the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War between Great Britain and France, with the British gaining control over many of the French colonies including Caribbean and Indian, thereby ending Joseph-François Dupleix’s dream of establishing a French Empire in India.

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The two centuries of French colonisation were decisive in the lives of the Mahéan after the French left their shores. The French government had introduced the facility of the optant, whereby those availing the facility could become French citizens within a period of six months from the day of the Treaty of Session, that is, 16 August 1962, and could settle either in France or in India while maintaining the citizenship. The government also introduced other policies whereby those from the Indian French colonies could receive French pensions. On 1 November 1954, a de facto transfer of power was implemented, and Mahé, along with its French possessions, was handed over to the Indian government. The de jure (Latin word that means ‘in law’) transfer of power occurred on 16 April 1962. Mahé along with Karaikal, Yanam, and Pondicherry merged into the Union territory of Pondicherry rather than merging into the nearby states, as the mayyazhikkar wanted to maintain the remnants of their French history distinct from that of the rest of India, whereas Chandernagore became a part of West Bengal. Despite the provisions offered by the French government in terms of citizenship, the French assimilative policies adversely affected the lives of the people of various categories including the Indo-­ French and the Indians who opted for French citizenship. In the novel, Alphonsachen’s musings about the glorious past during the colonial days where the Indo-French, the French, and the mayyazhikkar lived in Mahé with an apparent sense of mutual respect and care can be contextualised by drawing upon the observations of M. Brévié, an officer in the French colonial service, about the French crown’s assimilation policies. The French policies adopted to prevent the formation of ‘absolute identities’ are elaborated in A French View of Colonial Administration (1937). E.J. Arnett exemplifies how the nineteenth-century idea of Indo-­ French assimilation attained the dignity of a social idea.21 He conceived the policies to be those which facilitated mutual existence as a harmonious process, where the French and the mayyazhikkar attempt to understand each other and over the course of time coexist peacefully (Arnett, pp. 447–448). The assimilative policies could have been a major contributing factor for the formation of the Indo-French society in Mahé. It can be assumed that the French envisioned a prolonged future in Mahé and other French-­ occupied territories in India. The French crown and the company 21  E.J. Arnett is an the author of other works including Gazetteer of Sokoto Province (1920) and Gazetteer of Zaria Province (1920).

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encouraged marriages between the French and the mayyazhikkar as a major effort from the French side to assimilate with Mahéan geographical space. The establishment of marital relationships and having children who are half French and half Indian made the ties between both the communities stronger. The policy facilitated an infiltration of French principles into Mahéan social life along with the formation of an Indo-French community. However, when the French had to leave the Mayyazhi shores after the widespread movements for Independence from colonial powers across India,22 the attempts of assimilation became counterproductive. For instance, Alphonsachen, the representative of the Indo-French community, consistently repeats the phrase ‘mayyazhimakkal enteyum makkalanu’ which means that the children of Mayyazhi are my kids as well. Nevertheless, the Indo-French identity that he bears becomes torturous for him because he experiences an othering owing this identity. This question of identity crisis is emphasised in the film by isolating the story of the Indo-French family of Alphonsachen, thereby deviating considerably from the plot structure of the novel. The title Daivathinte Vikruthikal that translates to God’s Mischief, encompasses the irony that fragmented the historical dominance and identity of the Indo-French in Mayyazhi. It could be argued that faith did manage to hold the mayyazhikkar together at least for a while. For instance, the construction of churches could be considered as a method adopted for cultural assimilation through religion. As a result, Mahéan familial spaces assimilated Christianity as part of their society. The Mahé church, the Church of St Theresa of Avila, has had believers worshipping together, irrespective of their religion, since its establishment in 1736. The characters in the novel who are believers of both mayyazhimathavu, the Lady of Avila and Adithiyyan, the local deities, are woven together by 22  The nationalist movements that were prevalent in Mahé under the Mahajana Sabha with I.K.  Kumaran as the leader (active from 1937) and the Youth league (active from 1933) became more intense after Indian Independence from British rule in 1947. By October 1948, the Mahéans and the French had agreed to hold elections for the Municipal council, who were to decide whether Mahé will become a part of India. The rebellion continued till a French cruiser anchored off Mahé. French rule was re-established after many of the leaders of the Mahajana Sabha were either arrested and taken or left Mahé out of fear. The firing at Cherukallayi, Mahé, in April 1954, led to the virtual blockade in Mahé in June where both the French and the nationalists were tortured. In an effort to curb the violence, on 16 July 1954, Deschamps the administrator along with other French administrators left Mahé, marking the end of a 233-year-old French rule in Mahé (‘Freedom Struggle’, accessed on 13 September 2020).

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faith. But after the French left Mahé, the existing cultural and religious harmony could not protect the existing composite nature of the collective of mayyazhikkar. When Mukundan uses mayyazhikkar in Alphonsachen’s context, I interpret it as a collective that Alphonsachen considered himself to be a member; but the film interprets the text differently where in the space of Mayyazhi, mayyazhikkar, and Alphonsachen gradually becomes a dichotomy, which force Alphonsachen to end his life. The mischiefs of the gods who loved and punished mayyazhimakkal or children of Mayyazhi without any religious biases force the Indo-French community to resign to their fate where no place in the world, neither France nor Mahé, fulfils the criteria of home to them.

Geographic Spaces, Contested Identities, and Homelessness In the context of Mayyazhi, its geographical position was one of the reasons for its colonisation. The notions of ‘space’ that examine the importance of an object, an individual, or a community within the frameworks of time, posit a significant question: what is the relevance of the individual within the culturally and historically constructed structures of dominance? A study of microhistories of places emphasising their geography and culture is significant for extensive comprehension of the postcolonial situation. The specific postcolonial condition that is addressed in Daivathinte Vikruthikal is the societal circumstance that was instrumental in pushing the Indo-French out of the collective of mayyazhikkar. In this section Daivathinte Vikruthikal and its film adaptation are used to analyse the postcolonial conditions that expelled the community from the collective. The economic and political benefits of Mahé being a colony prompted the French to introduce its assimilative policies in an effort to sustain their control of the space. Mukundan’s novel observes how during the colonial days the citizens were all collectively considered to be mayyazhimakkal or children of Mayyazhi. This is a direct consequence of the efforts to prevent the formulation of absolute identities through the assimilative policies that the French government introduced. The policies employed rendered the Indo-French a belief that they belonged to the land and the land belonged to them. For instance, the establishment of schools that followed the French system of education and the church of St Avila could be considered as steps in creating French spaces in Indian spaces where

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they could envision their home. It is the turbulent change in this sense of belonging, which was a reality in the colonial era, that the novel and the film highlight when the sense of homelessness pervades the psyche of the Indo-French. Edward Relph, a Canadian Geographer, in his work—Place and Placelessness (1976)—recognises ‘the psycho-social need for assured roots’. ‘A deep relationship with place’, Relph writes, ‘is as necessary as close relationships with people; without such relationships human existence is bereft of much of its significance’ (Relph, p. 41). The assimilative policies and the creation of French spaces in Mayyazhi strengthened the French bonds with Mahéan geographical space. Pete Hay, a social and cultural geographer, observes that the state of being displaced, to be without any tie to home, is a pathological human condition. He identifies that the word ‘homeness’ necessitates a ‘deep ongoing conversation with place’. The concept of home associates the sense of a place to ‘permanence’ (Hay, pp. 13–14). The waves of freedom struggle that swept across the country against the British that led to the Independence in 1947 had its impact on the French territories as well. Many questioned French authority and that ultimately led to Mahé’s independence from the French rule in 1954. The event disrupts the existing ties between the French and the Mahéan space. The lives of Indo-French get torn between two options: leaving behind the accustomed home, Mahé, to join the French citizens in their return to France or staying behind in Mahé in a space that has been their home. Alphonsachen’s expectation about the geographical space as a home was contradictory to the reality that he faced in Mahé. The film adaptation clearly depicts how Maggi, Alphonsachen’s wife, desires to leave for France along with many of the other Indo-French and Indians who accepted French citizenship.23 The first cry of the fear of homelessness in the film is raised by Maggi when she laments ‘Nammale ivide aarkkum venda’, which translates into ‘No one wants us here ­anymore’, right before the last ship to France left the Mahé port. But Alphonsachen considers himself an integral part of Mahé and could not consider the possibility of spending his life anywhere else. His life as a local magician made him accustomed to the spaces, people, and culture of Mahé. Alphonsachen realises that the pre-independence Mahé where he enjoyed a respectable livelihood is not his reality anymore as the harmony 23  The novel does not specify this incident but shows Maggi to be distressed because the French left India.

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and brotherhood that existed between the mayyazhikkar and the Indo-­ French disappears after Independence. While Alphonsachen continues to consider himself and his family part of the mayyazhikkar collective, the native Mahéans, except a very few, treat them as ‘the other’. The family becomes increasingly poor and alienated, leading them to a disillusioned state where the image of home ceases to be compatible with the Mahé of their present. The misunderstandings and chasms caused by language are also interesting here. In the film, when Alphonsachen and his family prepare for Christmas, Kumaran asks his sons to gift Maggi a bottle of wine. But Shashi confuses a bottle of kashayam, a bitter ayurvedic medicine, for wine and hands it over to Maggi. When the family tastes the medicine, the narrative suggests that even the attempts from the mayyazhikkar to make the Indo-French feel at home fail miserably. The language that the Indo-­ French use to communicate indicates the space they considered to be closer to home. Both Alphonsachen and Elsie converse in Malayalam only. The film shows instances where Dharmapalan, one of the France returned mayyazhikkar, attempts to make conversations with Elsie in French—but she replies in Malayalam. Maggi, on the other hand, converses both in French and in Malayalam. When Kumaran vaidyar sends them a bottle of wine as a Christmas gift, Maggi wishes him well in French. While the major difference between the novel and the film is the separation and development of the Indo-French experience, in the visual adaptation, an important detail that assumes significance within the trope of home or homelessness is the role of Kadungan, a landlord in Mayyazhi. The literal manifestation of homelessness becomes evident in the film when Kadungan plots to take Alphonsachen’s material possessions away from him in return for the loan he had taken from Kadungan. Lenin Rajendran’s adaptation of the novel develops Kadungan as a representative of those forces that attempt to expel the Indo-French community, represented by Alphonsachen and his family, out of the collective of mayyazhikkar. Such attempts ultimately lead to efforts to make Alphonsachen homeless. In the novel, Kadungan does not attempt to evict the IndoFrench family from his residence nor does he make sexual advances towards Elsie. But, in the visual adaptation, Kadungan offends the family in different ways. He tries to influence Kumaran vaidyar, Alphonsachen’s closest companion, against Alphonsachen after Shashi, Kumaran vaidyar’s son, becomes missing after he gets Elsie pregnant. He inflicts mental torture on his family after demanding high interest for the loans he had lent to the

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family and forces Elsie for sexual favours by threatening to evict Alphonsachen from his residence. When Kadungan is denying Alphonsachen his residence, he is representing the mayyazhikkar who no longer consider the Indo-French to have any claim over the Mahéan soil. For the Indo-French in Mahé, the association of permanence with the geographical space appeared to fade away as their identity was contested in a place, Mayyazhi, that they considered to be their home. The film very clearly depicts the figurative and literal aspects of homelessness. The historical moments and movements affect the accommodative capability of geographical spaces as the French presence in Mahé permanently alters the Mahéan space in terms of architecture and culture. The dynamics between the space and its inhabitants and among the inhabitants change accordingly and in the case of Mahé the dynamics problematised the status of home and in turn the perception of their identity for the Indo-French. While the novel treats Alphonsachen’s lack of a sense of belonging as one of the many social changes that Mayyazhi experienced, the film separates the Indo-French experience to highlight the feeling of homelessness.

Fragmented Identities The assimilative policy facilitated an infiltration of French principles into Mahéan space. A. Suresh explicates how the policy of assimilation adversely affected the mayyazhikkar and the French alike. He calls the process a ‘double disaster’ as it revived class conflicts in the French settlements and acted as a trigger to the later nationalist movement to merge with India. Although prevention of absolute identity formulation was part of the French assimilation strategy that was supposed to aid the harmonious coexistence of Mahéans, the series of events that led to the French vacating the Mahé proved to be disastrous for the Indo-French population. The lack of absolute identities made them devoid of a home in both France and India. For many of the Indo-French citizens who were born and brought up in the French territory, Mahé was the only home. But the post-Independence political scenario that raised anti-European sentiments throughout the subcontinent marked the beginning of the changing circumstances of the Indo-French in Mahé. The film elucidates how the lack of absolute identities among the Indo-­ French leads them to possess a sense of fragmented identity. In the film, the teenager Elsie is introduced in a scene where she is making an onappookkalam, a floral decoration for Onam, at Kumaran vaidyar’s house. In

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the conversation with his mother who is overseeing the onappookkalam making, Kumaran vaidyar mentions: ‘Why are you surprised? Isn’t she our kid?’ He is one among the very few in Mayyazhi who considers the Indo-­ French as one of them, the mayyazhimakkal—children of Mayyazhi. But Elsie is constantly torn between the two cultures as she is simultaneously conditioned to be both French and Indian. She prays to both the local deity and Mother Mary. But the general social condemnation from the mayyazhikkar isolates her and fragments her identity. The film and the novel depict the years following independence as seeing a gradual increase in the unwelcoming nature of the mayyazhikkar against the Indo-French that increased the gap between the ‘us’ and ‘them’. People of Mayyazhi, represented by Kadungan, secretly and publicly created an atmosphere that made the Indo-French a complete outsider. This ancestry-based dichotomy in terms of belonging confused Alphonsachen, and he is unable to comprehend how the us and them surfaces in all his interactions with mayyazhikkar. ‘Mayyazhimakkal enteyum makkalanu’ (the children of Mayyazhi are my children as well) is a refrain that he uses in his conversations. On the other hand, the regret of not having left for France after independence intensifies Maggi’s lack of belongingness and considers Michael, their son who opted to go to France, her ray of hope. When Michael visits the family, Maggi hosts extravagant parties at their house; the frames and images on screen become brighter and more vibrant as opposed to the dull vacant frames, while she was not in touch with Michael, suggesting redundancy, longing, and loss.

Identity Expressed in Sartorial Ways This section elucidates how the description of the Indo-French attire in Daivathinte Vikruthikal, with its social perception being in stark contrast to the colonial era, signifies the reversal of power that forced the Indo-­ French down the social ladder of affluence and reverence. The costumes that the Indo-French wear in the film distinguish them from the mayyazhikkar. The latter admired the costumes of the French and the IndoFrench and wanted their children to get a job with French institutions so that they could wear coats to work. On the contrary, Elsie likes to wear saree instead of short dresses, which suggests the desire for the Indo-­ French to belong among the Mahéans. The short frock is part of their Indo-French identity, but the postcolonial conditions that prevailed in Mahé make her uncomfortable with her attire. At one instance, when Elsie

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is seen in a short frock, a mayyazhikkaran addresses her as the main prostitute in Mahé. With particular reference to this instance, the frock shows how her identity changed over the years. Elsie’s frock objectifies her sexually and fits her into the derogatory framework of the hypersexualised image of the chattakkari, or the Indo-French woman.24 The coat that Alphonsachen wears is old and torn and signifies the impoverished state of the Indo-French. The flashbacks in the film show Alphonsachen in clothing that suggests affluence. The impoverishment that is projected through Alphonsachen’s coat is substantiated through other instances in the film that suggest a socio-economic power subversion. Dharmapalan, one of the Gulf Mahéans, provides Maggi gifts in the form of cash, perfumes, and other valuables in return for sexual favours. The film hints that Alphonsachen had to take a loan from Kadungan even for purchasing Elsie’s wedding gown, among other related expenses. These instances portray how the Indo-French attire is associated to their degrading economic condition in order to depict the various ways in which the postcolonial reversal of conditions affected their identity.

Objects, Identity, and Homelessness The fragmentation of the Indo-French identity is also projected in the film through the objects25 that had been under the possession of Indo-French from the time of the colonial rule. Certain descriptions of the objects in the film contribute to the study of the Indo-French psyche. While Alphonsachen considers his room full of magic equipment as a link to the colonial past, Maggi associates her grand piano with the affluent lifestyle in the colonial era. They both take refuge in objects to escape from the indifference and unwantedness that they experience in Mahé. When Kadungan ruthlessly asks him to vacate the bungalow to completely repay his debts, Alphonsachen’s experience of homelessness is complete as the bungalow, the physical manifestation of home that has lost the comforts 24  This depiction is similar to the way in which Indo-French women’s attire was portrayed in other Malayalam films including Chattakkari. The 1974 film Chattakkari narrates the story of an Anglo-Indian, Christian girl Julie, portrayed by Lakshmi. The film contributing towards solidifying association of the word chattakkari with short frocks in the Malayali imagination. 25  The study of objects, material culture studies, acts as an agent to comprehend societies, their past and present, by subjecting the physical and material objects generated by those societies under careful study and observation.

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that it enjoyed in the colonial era and has undergone considerable degradation. When Alphonsachen asks Kumaran Vaidyar, if he is really unwanted in Mayyazhi, the response affirms his fears. At the end of the novel, Alphonsachen, addicted to ganja, loses track of time and the events around him. Maggi waits for an occasional visitor to their home which no one cares for anymore, and Elsie leads the life of a prostitute. The film, as noted earlier, also hints at the suicide of Alphonsachen by showing his hat being washed on to the shore of Mayyazhi. The hat symbolises the isolation and despair of an impoverished existence of the Indo-French family that lacked belongingness in the place that was once considered the home.

Conclusion The significance of Daivathinte Vikruthikal lies in its depiction of a minority group such as the Indo-French whose lives and experiences are often under-represented in the mainstream narratives of cultural and social history of the nation. Mahé in Daivathinte Vikruthikal assumes significance within the trope of Anglo-Indian Studies as both texts archive the microhistory of Indo-French, a community which has been very rarely represented in Indian literature and film. The French past is an integral part of Mahé and its inhabitants, and more so for the Indo-French. The transition towards an independent India altered their way of life and the perception about the self in multiple dimensions. The intensity and extent of adjustments and alterations to the self that the mayyazhimakkal had to make was the most severe in the case of the Indo-French. Both the novel and the film depict how the space of Mahé that once nurtured the Indo-French affects their identity by eroding their sense of belonging during the postcolonial period. Mukundan and Rajendran succeed in representing the agony of being unwanted and having an outsider status in a place that was once their home. Alphonsachen, Maggi, and Elsie embody the Indo-­ French consciousness and identity that suffered fragmentation in the process of readjusting to the Indian space that was once occupied by the French. Locating the characters within the French history of India elucidates and contextualises the alienation they experienced in the postcolonial era. The novel depicts this alienation through the dilemma faces by the Indo-French in being forced to choose one part of the identity over the other. The isolation of the Indo-French in Mayyazhi, both experienced and projected, can be located within the experienced and represented instances of homelessness and dejection often faced by many other sections of the Anglo-Indian community as well.

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References Arnett, E.  J. (1937). A French View of Colonial Administration. Journal of the Royal African Society., 36(145), 447–451. Directorate of Census Operations Puducherry. Hay, P. (2006). A Phenomenology of Islands. Island Studies Journal, 1(1), 19–42. Ko, S.  S. (1990). Nationality and International Law in Asian Perspective. M. Nijhoff. Martineau, A. (2004). The Origins of Mahé of Malabar: History of India from 1720. Pushpalata S. Mukundan, M. (2002). God’s Mischief (Prema Jayakumar, Trans.). Penguin Books. (Original Work Published 1989). Mukundan, M. (2014). On the Banks of the Mayyazhi (Gita Krishnankutty, Trans.). DC Books. (Original Work Published 1974). Panikkar, K. N. (1999, January 11). Interrogating Colonialism: Novel as Imagined History [Seminar Presentation]. Sahitya Academy. Pune. India. Panikkar, K.  N. (2010). Colonialism, Culture, and Resistance. Oxford University Press. Paul, C. (2017, May 7). Revolution 2.0. The Week. Retrieved from www.theweek. in/theweek/statescan/french-­citizens-­in-­india-­pesidential-­elections.html. Rai, A. (2008). The Legacy of French Rule in India, 1674–1954: An Investigation of a Process of Creolization. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, French Institute of Pondicherry. Rajendran, L. Director. (1992). Daivathinte Vikruthikal [God’s Mischief] [Film]. Souparnika Movie Arts. Suresh, S. (2010). Politics and Social Conflicts in French India: 1870–1939. Unpublished Dissertation, Pondicherry University.

CHAPTER 17

Mixed Feelings: Autoethnography, Affect and Anglo-Indian Creative Practice Glenn D’Cruz

Introduction Over the last few decades, members of the Anglo-Indian community have published a plethora of memoirs and other creative works that have gone some way towards recording the details of ‘a way of life’ that will most probably cease to exist in the not too distant future. This body of often extraordinary work provides a valuable complement to conventional historical and social scientific scholarship that focuses on the Anglo-Indians. Scholars and critics have also commented on novels and films that represent the community. As I have argued, elsewhere, the overwhelming bulk of this work takes the form of what I have called ‘image criticism’ (D’Cruz 2006). That is, a critical practice that is concerned with the veracity of Anglo-Indian representations (most often with reference to film and literature). More often than not, image critics attempt to discredit and dispel apparently negative or demeaning representations of the community as loafers, wasters or promiscuous harlots. Rather than rehearse my account

G. D’Cruz (*) Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_17

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of the strengths and weaknesses of this form of criticism in the present context, this chapter will focus on the way contemporary practices in the visual and performing arts provide a valuable source of knowledge about Anglo-Indian identity, especially when its creators adopt practice-led or practice-based research methodologies. It will also redress the relative paucity of commentary on non-narrative art forms that explore Anglo-­ Indian culture and identity. I hope this focus will open up new research pathways and practices and underscore the usefulness of autoethnography as both a creative practice and a research methodology. The chapter consists of two parts. The first explicates Rhett D’Costa’s work participatory artwork, ‘Masala Mix’ (2019), as an exemplary form of creative practice research that employs autoethnography. The second provides an account of my own creative process with reference to a multimedia performance, Vanitas (2019, https://vimeo.com/472469046).

Rhett D’Costa’s ‘Masala Mix’ (2019) After removing my shoes, I walk into Gallery 5 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Sheets of white butcher’s paper cover the floor of the space. I see large mounds of spices—turmeric, cumin, coriander, chilli and fenugreek amongst others—carefully arranged on the makeshift surface. The spice piles look like misshapen pyramids, and their colours—the dense yellow of turmeric, the deep red of chilli powder, the tan of cumin—radiate an intensity that contrasts with the gallery’s ‘white box’ architecture. A few people sit on cushions placed around the perimeter of the space, and some approach the spice mounds and take a whiff of the intoxicating aromas emanating from the exotic powders. The dulcet tones of Engelbert Humperdinck (AKA Arnold George Dorsey) provide a slightly unsettling aural ambience to the proceedings (the singer’s music sounds as though it has been artificially slowed down). My attention is momentarily distracted by a video projection that plays on a loop on the wall opposite the entrance to the gallery. After speculating about the meaning of the images on the wall, I self-consciously take a sniff of, what are for me, familiar spices before grabbing a black cushion and sitting against the right-hand wall. The gallery begins to fill up and the chatter grows louder. I sit in silence. I don’t know anyone here and I feel awkward and ‘out of place’ even though the artist responsible for this event, Rhett D’Costa, invited me to attend. I’ve never met Rhett, and he only knows me through my writings

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about Anglo-Indians, which apparently influenced his own artworks with Anglo-Indian  themes. Most of the people in the gallery are white Australians. I spy a few brown faces amongst the throng, but this is certainly not an event specifically curated for Melbourne’s Anglo-Indian community. I pluck up enough courage to introduce myself to Rhett. We exchange greetings and I let him get on with the task of welcoming his guests and mingling with the crowd. After a short introductory speech by Rhett, in which he explains that he will shortly serve us an Anglo-Indian lunch, three or four young women enter the galley with banana leaves and tiffin carriers (a three- or four-tier lunch-box made of steel). They give each guest a robust, fresh leaf before opening the tiffins and spreading the containers around the space. Rhett has cooked the food himself. He’s prepared mince ball curry and rice, coriander chutney and dhal (or is it dol). Rhett tells the group that he has used his Anglo-Indian mother’s recipes as the basis for the lunch, which the crowd consumes Indian style: he instructs us to place the food on our banana leaf and eat with our right hand. The food is delicious and comfortingly familiar. The ball curry tastes like it was made by my mother. After lunch, Rhett engages the audience in conversation. Most of the assembled throng have never heard of Anglo-Indians, so Rhett provides a compelling introduction to the community’s history and culture. He draws me into the conversation and defers to me on several occasions as an authority on all things Anglo-Indian. I feel like a fraud. I haven’t been actively researching Anglo-Indians as an academic for many years, so I struggle to dredge up facts and figures from the recesses of my memory. True, I have book knowledge about the community and I can say something about the experience of growing up in a diasporic Anglo-Indian family (in the UK and Australia), but I certainly don’t feel like an Anglo-­ Indian anymore, especially after returning from a recent trip to India which reminded me of my status as a ‘roots tourist’ to use a phrase I picked up from the anthropologist, Robyn Andrews (2019). In other words, despite looking like an (Anglo) Indian, my knowledge of the culture is, in a sense, second-hand. Yet, I feel this knowledge about my colonial heritage connects me to people like Rhett, the progeny of Midnight’s Orphans, that is, those diasporic Anglo-Indians who felt rejected by mother India and the British in the wake of Indian independence in 1947. Rhett’s family are from Bombay (today’s Mumbai) and mine are from Madras (Chennai). Though our respective families come from different cities in India, Rhett’s food underscores a kinship we share. It’s a kinship

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that is communicated forcefully, if not completely, through cuisine, language, music, fashion, comportment, religion. In other words, Rhett’s lunch reinforces my sense of belonging, however tenuously, to a very specific Anglo-Indian culture that has been shaped by British colonialism. Though strangers, we share a common heritage and, I suspect, a slightly confused sense of our place in the postcolonial order of things. Are we Midnight’s Children, or Midnight’s Orphans? I’m not sure that it really matters, although I will attempt to unpack this question within the context of this paper’s major argument concerning the ability of the creative arts to generate new knowledge about Anglo-Indian culture, for I will claim that Rhett’s practice as an artist facilitates an embodied and performative engagement with culture that complements knowledge generated by researchers who communicate through the written word (historians, sociologist, anthropologists, etc.) or artists who express themselves through narrative mediums like literature and film. Rhett is an artist, but he also teaches painting at RMIT  University, which means he is compelled to conduct research as an integral part of his role as an academic. He describes his research as a form of practice-led inquiry. What does this mean? Before we can answer this question, it is worth reminding ourselves of what traditional research practices in the sciences and humanities look like. Conventional academic research, especially in the sciences, usually tests a hypothesis about some aspect of the material world by conducting experiments or collecting and interpreting data, which either supports or undermines a hypothesis. Strict protocols govern this form of research activity: the results of experiments need to be reproducible and are subject to peer review before they are published. Scholars working in the humanities adopt similar protocols, although some disciplines find it more difficult than others to mirror scientific research practices. Nevertheless, research in fields like literature, history and anthropology often involves the collation and interpretation of facts or texts. For example, a literary scholar may seek to uncover hitherto unknown facts about an individual writer’s oeuvre by conducting archival research or they may reinterpret a specific text in the light of new theoretical perspectives. They may pose the following sorts of questions: how might we reinterpret Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, if we read the play through the lens of feminist or postcolonial theory? How might these theoretical perspectives shape the way contemporary directors approach the play? How might new knowledge concerning the play’s sources influence our understanding of the text? An anthropologist may study a

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community and produce a ‘thick description’ of its practices in order to generate new insights into its cultural practices. The term ‘thick description’ refers to a methodological practice, primarily associated with the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, that supplements formal observation with detailed contextual information that often includes subjective reflections concerning the observer’s experience of gathering data (Geertz 1973). In each instance, the researcher produces new knowledge about its object of investigation by generating propositions that other researchers can verify as being ‘true’. So, what forms of knowledge does an artist generate? In what sense is art an experimental practice? Is it possible for art to generate data or prove or disprove a hypothesis? And if art does none of these things, how can we claim that art practice constitutes research? In recent years, we have witnessed what we might call a paradigm shift within universities, especially in the UK, parts of Europe and Australasia. It is now common for tertiary institutions to recognise practice-led research, practice-based research or even practice as research as valid forms of academic inquiry. There now exists a growing body of scholarship devoted to articulating the methodologies associated with this nascent research paradigm (Carter 2004; Allegue et al. 2009; Smith and Dean 2009; Barrett and Bolt 2010). The common thread running through this body of work concerns the nature of the knowledge generated by creative arts research. Howard Riley points out: The historical prioritisation of propositional knowledge has excluded the kinds of knowledge associated with visual art practices, which have variously been called ‘practical’, ‘personal’, ‘procedural’ or ‘tacit’ knowledge, and ‘experiential’ knowledge, all of which I shall include under the collective term non-propositional. (2018, p. 433)

Let us return to Rhett D’Costa’s work and unpack it with respect to Riley’s argument concerning the ability of visual art to produce non-­ propositional knowledge. The most notable feature of Rhett D’Costa’s work, as I have already intimated, is that it is affective. For me, it underscores identity as something that is primarily performative and experiential. In other words, the act of serving a meal to a group of non-Anglo-Indians within a gallery conveys something integral about the importance of hospitality to Anglo-Indian culture. Further, and more importantly, the aromas and sounds in the gallery space evoked the atmosphere and ambience of an Anglo-Indian family gathering, at least as I recall such events:

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Engelbert on the stereo, the smell of Indian spices hanging in the air, permeating fabrics and skin, the bitter-sweet feeling of being at home. While any work of art (or scholarship for that matter) may produce a wide range of affects, ‘Masala Mix’ appeal to the senses provoked a set of powerful affects that not only evoked painful memories but generated the feeling of belonging to a particular family and a culture that is hard to define with any degree of precision. Art excels at generating such affects, which is why it figures so prominently in scholarship influenced by the so-called affective turn in the humanities. In their introduction to The Affect Studies Reader, Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth write: Affect, at its most anthropomorphic, is the name we give to those forces-­ visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing, vital forces insisting beyond emotion-that can serve to drive us toward movement, toward thought and extension, that can likewise suspend us (as if in neutral) across a barely registering accretion of force-relations, or that can even leave us overwhelmed by the world’s apparent intractability. Indeed, affect is persistent proof of a body’s never less than ongoing immersion in and among the world’s obstinacies and rhythms, its refusals as much as its invitations. (2010 LOC 54)

Affect then is a palpable force that shapes our relations towards the world and other people as opposed to a form of propositional knowledge, yet it may function as a type of injunction to speak about the trials and tribulations of being in the world. My participation in Rhett’s interactive art event gave me an opportunity to respond to its affective charge by speaking about my personal experience of growing up in an Anglo-Indian family. I confessed to the other participants assembled in the gallery that, as a child, I felt ashamed of my Anglo-Indian heritage. I did not want people to smell curry on my breath or clothes. I desperately wanted other people to see me as English, but my appearance marked me as a ‘Paki’. I felt dislocated and embarrassed. I had no memory of India, no affiliation with its culture beyond a reluctant familiarity with its cuisine, yet I am reluctant to describe myself as one of Midnight’s Orphans, for Anglo-­ Indians were never wholly abandoned by Britain or India. As we all know, the Indian constitution guaranteed certain rights (job reservations and political representation) to those that stayed, and Britain, at least for a period immediately after that fateful stroke of midnight that ushered the republic of India into existence, gave Anglo-Indians sanctuary. In some

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ways, the substantive content of my contribution to the discussion generated by Rhett’s work is almost beside the point, the meal served to underscore the extent to which cuisine is a key component of culture, history and inheritance. After the discussion, Rhett invited the participants to dip their fingers in the left-over curries and draw on the butcher’s paper that covered the gallery floor. I complied, but as my fingers traced abstract patterns with the ball curry, I recalled that my family only ate food on a banana leaf on one occasion: it was an Indian-themed party; my Mother, dressed in a Sari, served sambar and masala dosas, typical south Indian food. Clearly, my parents had an affection for Madras and the cuisine of Tamil Nadu, but there was something unsettling about seeing my family engage in what we might call cultural cross dressing—it was certainly something out of the ordinary, for they never ate with their hands or wore Indian clothes. Was this a genuine demonstration of affection for Mother India? Was it an ironic gesture? Who can tell after all these years?

Autoethnography and Creative Practice I hope my account of Rhett D’Costa’s work goes some way towards redressing the lack of critical discourse concerning the ways Anglo-Indian artists address questions of cultural identity, belonging, racial prejudice and so on. My intent is not to argue for the superiority of creative research methodologies but rather to highlight how they might generate different affects and forms of knowledge about Anglo-Indian culture. ‘Masala Mix’ has much in common with the artworks Rhett produced as part of his PhD research. He claims: The artworks draw on my personal experiences as an Anglo Indian, and may be described as autoethnographic, highlighting the often precarious, shifting social and political circumstances and predicaments associated with mixed race communities. A range of attitudinal and creative strategies, including the poetic, ironic, ambivalent and humorous, are used to develop a series of multidisciplinary artworks that utilise a wide range of materials and forms. (2016, p. 9)

Any judgement about our work’s status as autoethnography will be shaped by how you understand the term. A recent work titled Critical

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Autoethnography claims that this qualitative research methodology is predicated on the ability to invite readers into the lived experience of a presumed “Other” and to experience it viscerally. Accordingly, we envisioned a project that would “give voice” to previously silenced and marginalized experiences, answer unexamined questions about the multiplicity of social identities, instigate discussions about and across difference, and explain the contradictory intersections of personal and cultural standpoints. (Boylorn et  al. 2016, p. 15)

In other words, autoethnography seeks to produce knowledge that is not easily accessed by more traditional research methodologies. For Norman K. Denzin, autoethnography contests the so-called realist agendas of social science that privilege ‘the researcher over the subject, method over subject matter, and maintain commitments to outmoded conceptions of validity, truth, and generalizability’ (1992, p. 20). For Rose Richards, among others, it also possesses an emancipatory force insofar as the autoethnographer represents him or herself ‘instead of being colonized by others and subjected to their agendas or relegated to the role of second-class citizens’ (2008, p. 1724). By accessing the ‘authentic’ experience of marginalised subjects whose ‘truth’ emanates from identity politics, this research practice opens a space for articulating subjugated knowledge in the form of personal testimony, or does it? Critics of the methodology, such as Amanda Coffey (1999), point to its narcissistic focus and accuse its practitioners of being overly introspective and self-indulgent. Some critics remain suspicious on the methodology’s valence even when drawing on its techniques. For example, in a work that considers the ways cultural values shape everyday practices, John Frow provides a narrative account of his personal experience of making value judgements in his own life. However, he begins with the following caveat, which expresses caution about such a ‘personal’ approach ton scholarly work: In thinking about how to write on these themes, I decided to do something I rarely do in public: to talk about the varieties of judgement in which I engage in my daily life. I hope this isn’t too narcissistic a way of approaching the topic; I have been embarrassed in the past by papers delving deeply into people’s personal traumas or the contents of their iPods or their love of Buffy reruns. This, I hope, will be slightly less self-serving, and I shall try to

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move from talking about myself to talking about the regimes of value that govern our textual transactions. (2013, p. 88)

In order to practise autoethnography, it is necessary to suspend any anxieties one may have about the apparently ‘self-serving’ narcissism Frow finds so embarrassing, and risk ridicule through personal disclosure. For many of its practitioners, successful autoethnography is necessarily self-­ reflexive. Tami Spry, in her paper ‘Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Practice’, argues that adopting a self-reflexive position that exposes the connection between one’s personal identity and one’s research activity compels readers or spectators to also ‘reflect critically upon their own Life-experience, their constructions of self, and their interactions with others within socio-historical contexts’ (2001, p. 711). From another standpoint, Paul Carter has written eloquently about the practice of art as being a form of what he calls material thinking, that is, a practice that generates knowledge through making or doing. Carter argues: Critics and theorists interested in communicating ideas about things cannot emulate it. They remain outsiders, interpreters on the sidelines, usually trying to make sense of the creative process afterwards, purely on the basis of its outcome. They lack access to the process and, more fundamentally, they lack the vocabulary to explicate its intellectual character. (2004, p. xi)

Obviously, I took an outsider’s approach in explicating Rhett’s work, its participatory form notwithstanding. In the second section of this paper, I will provide an account of my own creative process with reference to an evolving multimedia performance, Vanitas (2019) by incorporating Carter’s concept of material thinking into my autoethnographic practice. In so doing, I will articulate how I used autoethnography as creative research methodology to generate new insights about my experience of growing up in an Anglo-Indian family. In Carter’s terms, I want to show how the process of material thinking enables us to think differently about our human situation, and, by displaying in a tangible but non-­ reductive form its inevitable complexity, to demonstrate the great role works of art can play in the ethical project of becoming (collectively and individually) oneself in a particular place. (2004, p. xii)

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Vanitas It started with a passage from Paul Auster’s book, The Invention of Solitude: There is nothing more terrible than, I learned, than having to face the objects of a dead man. Things are inert: they have meaning only in function of the life that makes use of them. When that life ends, the things change, even though they remain the same. They are there and not there: tangible ghosts, condemned to survive in a world they no longer belong to … In themselves, the things mean nothing, like the cooking utensils of some vanished civilisation. And yet they say something to us, standing there not as objects but as remnants of thought, of consciousness, emblems of the solitude in which a man comes to make decisions about himself: whether to color his hair, whether to wear this shirt or that, whether to live, whether to die. And the futility of it all once there is death. (1988, p. 10)

There is something unsettling about confronting the possessions of a dead man, especially when the deceased is a close relative or friend. My father died in 1985 and I did not process my grief until many years later. In fact, I felt a sense of liberation in the immediate aftermath of his death. Then, almost a quarter of a century later, I wrote a letter to him on the anniversary of his death. I don’t recall any specific motivation for composing this epistle, but a few years later, I incorporated it into a performance work about my father’s life, Migrant Mobilities: Cruel Optimism and the Case of AJ D’Cruz (2015). This work told a story about my often-fraught relationship with my father through a series of vignettes inspired by his possessions: cameras, a tennis racquet, a tape recorder, photographs, 8-mm cine films, an empty tub of Brylcreem, stamps, garden tools and so on. For me, each object did indeed function as remnants of a life and a world that has now vanished. The objects also acted as a medium through which I felt I could communicate with my dead father, converse, if you will, with his ghost. Indeed, the spectre of my father is insistent, now more than ever. He just won’t go away. Perhaps I feel guilty for now grieving his death, or perhaps I feel guilty about not living up to his moral standards. All I can state with confidence is that I feel his presence (absence) whenever I confront his possessions, which I have inherited (or, perhaps commandeered). In any case, my father’s things have become an integral part of my current creative practice project, Vanitas (2019)—a collaboration with animator and film director, Steve McIntyre, and visual artist, John Graham (who are, for the record,

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two non-Anglo-Indian friends). The performance includes 16 video animations that accompany a series of short autobiographical speeches. Each section of the performance takes one of my father’s possessions as its point of departure. In what follows, I will focus on the autoethnographic status of three vignettes: ‘Suit’, ‘Signet Ring’ and ‘Tape Recorder’ I will indent each vignette and italicise descriptions of my actions and the multimedia content that is projected on a screen behind me. ***

Suit I walk on stage wearing a formal black suit. My shirt is stiff and starched. My tie carefully ironed. My shoes gleam in the spotlight, having been thoroughly buffed and polished. I survey the audience, hold my gaze for three beats before reciting the following passage:

I HATE suits and all they represent: authority, wealth, confidence, entitlement, superiority. Bosses wear suits! Normal, socially acceptable people wear suits. Criminals wear suits. Politicians wear suits. The people responsible for destroying the environment wear suits. My father wore suits. So, I wore suits, reluctantly, unwillingly, grudgingly. From the age of seven, he paid a tailor somewhere in East London to turn me into a subcontinental version of Little Lord Fauntleroy.

At this point in the performance, I project a montage of images, taken from my family’s voluminous photograph albums, of me dressed in suits.

It wasn’t his fault. I blame the British and the Indians, too. Both groups despised us as much as they despised each other. Chee-chees, blacky-whites, half castes, Anglo-Indians. Midnight’s orphans. The Brits hated as for giving human form to their rapacious colonial lust. Kipling called us borderline folk, the white manifesting in spurts of ‘fierce, childish pride’ The black in ‘still fiercer abasement and humility, half heathenish customs and strange, unaccountable impulses to crime’ (Kipling 1993, 71; originally published in 1887). The Indians saw us as British stooges, lackeys, hopelessly compromised by lax morals, alcoholism and music. We were party people. The men: ‘good for nothing’ wasters living for the day, slaves to their basest desires. The women: temptress whores, easy lays. Eve incarnated. Trouser Snake charmers with painted faces, blush, mascara, lipstick. The suit guarded against such

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slurs by encasing its wearer in a magical mantle of respectability. Pariah dogs of the world unite, and embrace the suit!!

Signet Ring I tell the following story, which is simultaneously illustrated by a video animation. With his first pay check, he bought a Signet Ring, Initials inscribed in Rose Gold, A Princely symbol for a man of ambition, as decreed by time-honoured tradition, But the ill-winds of change threatened to blow away his modest railway commission, Consigning him, in all probability, to a life of frustrated aspiration. He discussed the pros and cons of leaving with his wife, young and pregnant; They argued from dusk ’til the first light of dawn She reluctantly agreeing to leave the decision up to fate: Heads or Tails? “If it’s a boy we pack and go,” he said. “If it’s a girl, well, we’ll make a go of it. When a baby boy arrived, he cashed in his provident fund so he too could quit India, just like the British did in 1947. He bought a one-way ticket to London on a slow P&O in March 1963. Money was scarce, so he left his wife and child behind Until he could earn enough money to put them on a BOAC Jetliner, and protect them From the strain of threading the Suez Canal after weeks on the high seas. The wheels of Indian bureaucracy grind slowly unless lubricated with baksheesh; Every minor visa clerk demanded that his palms be greased, and the government, too, were on the take. The ‘Chee Chee’ orphans were free to depart if they paid their dues to Mother India, Who decreed that they could only take a measly sum of rupees out of the nascent Republic. So, Anto left India with subsistence funds and his treasured Signet Ring. He got off the boat at the ancient port of Aden

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Where he sought a Jeweller to appraise his ornament. The merchant proved to be a cunning rogue, a silver-tongued conman Who disappeared into the madding crowd As soon as he grasped Anto’s last vestige of imperial prestige. This would not be the last time he felt the sting of shame as he watched his pride and dignity vanish with a cruel twist of fate.

Tape Recorder I speak the following passage into a microphone, providing a live commentary to a montage of still images and 8-mm cine footage shot by my father and other family members. The video includes sounds sourced from recordings made on my father’s tape recorder. You’d never know it from the way he screamed at her, but my dad loved my mum. And she loved him. She insisted he buy the tape recorder, so he could at least enjoy the soundtrack the television programs he missed as a consequence of being a shift worker. ‘Be quiet! You’re father’s sleeping’. My dad was a London Transport bus conductor for many years. He worked the 57 route which began at the West Ham garage and terminated in the West End. His was not a glamorous job. 4.00 am start. Pitch black. Ice cold. Foggy, dusty, dirty, diesel stench. And sometimes, He might have heard the following phrases:            

‘Go back to your own country, you fucking Paki, you fucking wog, you fucking coon, you fucking nigger, you fucking black cunt’

knock off at 10.00 pm. Head home, Eat, Shit, Sleep, Start again. Shift work was lucrative. Time and a half. You could pay down the mortgage on the two-up, two-down terrace house in 30 years! On his days off, the tape recorder allowed him to relax to the soundtrack of the Des O’Conner Show. Or, if he was in the mood, he could listen to the

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smooth croon of Jim Reeves, or Engelbert Humperdinck, the Anglo-­ Indian Elvis. The tape recorder came with a microphone, and my dad recorded himself singing for fun. He was not quite tone deaf, but he was no singer, but what he lacked in ability he made up for in enthusiasm, and his was passion was infectious. One day he recorded the neighbourhood kids. White, cockney boys and girls, our friends and playmates. It’s still possible to thread the reel-to-reel tapes through the heads of the ancient machine and hear sounds from the past. Distant, Distorted, High noise to signal. An archive born out of love.

The scene ends with me performing a duet, the country and western song ‘Send Me the Pillow that You Dream On’ with the disembodied voice of my father.

Performance and Performativity Before unpacking the ethnographic significance of these extracts from my performance, I will briefly describe my creative process. Basically, I set myself the task of using my father’s things as prompts to evoke aspects of family life, which I took for granted, or saw as the natural order of things. The challenge for me was to select and combine the objects in a manner that gave the performance a structure. I was not seeking to provide a chronological account of my father’s life. Rather, I was looking for resonances between the objects in terms of their function in everyday family life. I was also looking for patterns of thought and behaviour that I could yoke together for dramatic purposes. The possible meanings and significance of the objects became clearer after the fact of creating the aesthetic work. There was also a sense in which the objects themselves generated questions about history, culture and identity and forced me to think differently about my experience of growing up in an Anglo-Indian family. On reflection, I think the first two extracts, ‘Suit’ and ‘Signet Ring’, say something about my father’s desire to appear, in his idiom, ‘up to the mark’. In other words, specific items of clothing and jewellery played a crucial role in consolidating his identity as a ‘respectable’ Anglo-Indian. The suit, a signifier of prestige and status, provided my father with a visible means of dispelling the disparaging stereotypes often used to represent Anglo-Indian men as ‘wasters’ or ‘loafers’. As I pointed out in Midnight’s

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Orphans, the ‘waster’ ‘aimlessly drifts through life pursuing the pleasure principle’ (D’Cruz 2006, p. 39). However, the suit also carries connotations associated with another common Anglo-Indian stereotype: ‘the big shot’. This figure ‘dresses extravagantly, boasts of his income and pays meticulous attention to his personal appearance’ (D’Cruz 2006, p. 39). My father might have enjoyed playing the ‘big shot’ on occasion, but he was, for the most part, a modest man who craved recognition and respect. Unfortunately, for both of us, my father’s sartorial tastes soured our relationship, especially in my teenage years. I wanted to fit in with my peers by growing my hair, wearing Levi jeans and band T-Shirts. I cried when my father took me to the barber. I cried even harder when I saw myself in the mirror sporting a ‘short back and sides’ haircut. And then, of course, there was the business of being fitted up for ‘the suit’. My heightened, exaggerated performance draws attention to the social significance of the suit within my family and the culture at large. The third extract from my performance, ‘Tape recorder’, demonstrates how difficult it was for migrants like my father, Anto D’Cruz, to feel valued and appreciated. It is important to point out that I was not consciously thinking about stereotypical representations of Anglo-Indians, or the migrant condition when I was writing these vignettes. Rather, I was using each material object as a means of speculating about what life might have been like for my father. No doubt, I was not wholly relying on the objects to guide me. Obviously, I had already absorbed a lot of information about Anglo-Indian history and culture, and I have little doubt that this knowledge enabled me to locate my father within various historical and cultural contexts. However, my attempt to construct a creative work from my father’s personal archive enabled me to better understand the historical currents that shaped his life. Indeed, it is through the process of piecing the performance together that I came to know the ‘everyday’ struggles my father faced as an Anglo-Indian in India, the UK and Australia. Moreover, by ‘playing’ with my father’s possessions and mimicking such things as his dress sense, I became more aware of the social and political scripts that compel us all to behave and act in certain ways. I became more aware of the daily rituals and repetitive behaviours that shaped our daily lives and consolidated our identities. For example, the nightly recitation of the rosary in front of the Sacred Heart of Jesus picture, given pride of place in the family lounge room, the gendered division of labour that consigned my mother to kitchen (even though she held a nine-to-five job), the aforementioned conflict over clothes, hairstyles and

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general comportment, the tone, rhythm and ‘sing-song’ lilt of my parents voices comprised a set of practices that, when repeated over time, coalesced into what we might call an Anglo-Indian identity. Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote that ‘one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman’ (1949, p. 267). I think we can say the same thing about Anglo-Indians insofar as that any identity comes into being through a set of acts that we repeat over a significant duration of time. This, at least, is the crux of Judith Butler’s regularly cited theory of performativity, which contends that gendered identity is a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief. If the ground of gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through time, and not a seemingly seamless identity, then the possibilities of gender transformation are to be found in the arbitrary relation between such acts, in the possibility of a different sort of repeating, in the breaking or subversive repetition of that style. (1988, p. 520)

To be clear, Butler makes an important distinction between performance and performativity. For her gender identity is not akin to a theatrical performance where an actor chooses to perform a role. Rather, it is the repetition of acts over time, drawn from pre-existing social scripts and structures, that consolidate identities so they come to feel natural. Homi Bhabha makes a similar point when he argues that the mimicry of colonial manners, speech and deportment can expose the precarious nature of colonial authority by pointing to the performative nature of colonial identities (1994, pp.  85–92). Following Butler and Bhabha, we might consider how the deliberatively subversive repetition of Anglo-Indian tropes, representations and behaviours within the visual and performing arts might contribute to transforming everyday conceptions of Anglo-Indian identity by demonstrating that it is possible to act differently.

References Allegue, L., Jones, S., Kershaw, B., & Piccini, A. (Eds.). (2009). Practice-as-­ Research in Performance and Screen. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Andrews, R. (2019). Roots Tourism: Anglo-Indian returnees to India, 11th World Anglo-Indian Reunion, Research Showcase, Chennai. Unpublished Paper. Auster, P. (1988). The Invention of Solitude. London: Faber and Faber.

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Barrett, E., & Bolt, B. (Eds.). (2010). Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. London and New York: I.B. Taurus. Boylorn, R.  M., & Orbe, M.  P. (2016). Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life. London and New York: Routledge. de Beauvoir, Simone. (1949). The Second Sex (H.  M. Parshley, Trans.). Penguin, 1972. Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519–531. Carter, P. (2004). Material Thinking. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Coffey, A. (1999). The Ethnographic Self. London: Sage. D’Costa, R. (2016). Shimmering Spaces: Art and Anglo-Indian Experiences. Unpublished PhD, RMIT, Melbourne. D’Cruz, G. (2006). Midnight’s Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Postcolonial Literature. Bern: Peter Lang. Denzin, N.  K. (1992). The Many Faces of Emotionality. In C.  Ellis (Ed.), Investigating Subjectivity: Research on Lived Experience. London: Sage. Frow, J. (2013). The Practice of Value: Essays on Literature in Cultural Studies. Perth: The University of Western Australia Press. Geertz, C. (1973) ‘Thick Description: Towards an Interpretive Theory of Culture’ in The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books. Gregg, M., & Seigworth Gregory, J. (Eds.). (2010). The Affect Studies Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Kindle Edition). Kipling, R. (1993). ‘His Chance in Life’ (1887). In Plain Tales from the Hills. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics. Richards, R. (2008, December). Writing the Othered Self: Autoethnography and the Problem of Objectification in Writing About Illness and Disability. Qualitative Health Research, 18: 12. Riley, H. (2019). ‘Aesthetic cognitivism: Towards a concise case for doctoral research through practices in the visual arts.’ Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 18(4), 430–443. Smith, H., & Dean, R.  T. (Eds.). (2009). Practice-Led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts (Research Methods for the Arts and Humanities). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Spry, T. (2001). Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(6), 706–732.

CHAPTER 18

Fictionalised Identities: Remodelling Anglo-Indians Jade Furness

Agnes Menasse was my great grandmother from my mother’s side of the family. She was born in India, and although my mother had told me she was of both French and Indian heritage, she was referred to in the family as Indian, neither French nor British. She was described as small, dark, spoke English with a strange accent, had been brought up in India, educated in a convent and her family had servants. Agnes died before I was born. When Agnes lived in India, her racial designation was Eurasian, a person of mixed Asian and European ancestry. In 1882, Agnes Menasse married my great grandfather, Charles Davies, a Welsh gunner in the British army, based in Kamptee, India. With their first two children, one of whom was my grandfather, the family came to New Zealand in 1890 to begin a new life. Eurasian, Anglo-Indian, these racial taxonomies were never used in my family; however, the Indian connection on my mother’s side was acknowledged, and then discarded by the family since Agnes and her children were New Zealanders. As her generation died so did much of the family history.

J. Furness (*) Independent, Lower Hutt, New Zealand © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1_18

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In 1998, I travelled to Kamptee in India, in search of a slice of my own ancestral identity to understand where Agnes and Charles had lived and were married. I was also fixated on finding out where Agnes was born. Her death certificate recorded ‘born in India’. Armed with a copy of Charles’ army records, and family photographs, I arrived at the Kamptee Cantonment gates and asked the guard if I could visit the Roman Catholic Church in the Cant. Surprisingly he hailed a tuk-tuk and sent me to the Church of Immaculate Conception in the former British, but currently active Indian, army base. The priest spoke English and allowed me to look at the marriage register, where I found a record of their marriage in English. He told me the St Joseph’s Convent Agnes was educated at was still there, and he also let me look at the baptism records. Agnes was not baptised in Kamptee. I visited the church, paid a donation for the restoration fund and walked out of the Cant. Since the priest had buried the last Menasse in his diminishing congregation of 80, three years previously, I attempted to find that grave in the newer part of the cemetery but never did. Years later, studying for my Masters in English literature, I asked my supervisor if there were any Anglo-Indian writers I could study for my thesis. My adventure with Allan Sealy’s written works thus began in 2006 when I read The Trotter-nama and felt a sense of deep connection with this text. Through the eyes of Sealy’s fictional narrative, I began to understand how Eurasian/Anglo-Indians, including my great grandmother, have endured fictionalised identities through ‘official’ historical, literary and family representations, discursive constructions and textual enactments that have secured their invisibility within dominant colonial and postcolonial narratives. Allan Sealy identifies as Anglo-Indian, lives in Dehra Dun, India, and is described as an Indian writer in English. This chapter unfolds Sealy’s remodelling of Anglo-Indian identities and community in India, through his novels The Trotter-nama and The Everest Hotel. It locates my personal quest to recover a misplaced family Anglo-Indian identity in India, within Sealy’s discursive reframing of Anglo-Indian identities that are not fixed, definitive or singular. Both novels introduced narratives of detailed possibilities I had not previously grasped. I began to understand Agnes may have come from a Eurasian/Anglo-Indian community in India that had its own social, cultural and political identities, separate from but living within Indian and British Indian constructions. As with my family’s Anglo-Indian

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narrative, what remains are appropriated stories of multiple identities shelved within a linguistically and culturally diverse diaspora. I will first investigate textual representations of Anglo-Indians in Sealy’s first novel, The Trotter-nama, in which he exploits the narrative technique, ‘magical realism’, to displace the dominant British narrative in India for ‘Anglo-Indians’. As a discursive form, magical realism (explored in more depth further into the chapter) provides marginalised and/or postcolonial people a vehicle for creative expression of their own narratives in a way that does not privilege the magical over the real or the real over the magical. It enables them to become the centre of their own stories, acting as a counterpoint to the dominant colonial voice. Sealy re-positions Anglo-­ Indians in a context that increasingly explores multiple fictionalised identities and stories. He opens another discourse which is as legitimate as any in existence about the colonial encounters with the British and French in India. The Trotter-nama, first published in 1988, issues a challenge to us all, in the prologue with the words ‘Take up the Grey Man’s Burden…’ (Sealy 1990, Prologue). In this chapter, I will also explore Sealy’s representation of Anglo-Indians in his third novel, The Everest Hotel, written in 1998. Here, he signals a dying Anglo-India laid to rest in the ‘Ever-rest’ cemetery which shares a boundary with the Everest Hotel. My overarching interest in my great grandmother Agnes was focused on her life in India, prior to 1890, the date she left India to settle in New Zealand. I wanted to understand how she lived, where she was born, who her parents were, her siblings, where they lived, their work, and how and why a Menasse, purportedly French, established a lineage in India. My own paper-chase (with reference to Eugene Trotter’s paper-chase in Sealy 1990, p. 7) has included searching official and unofficial sources such as marriage and death certificates, British army documents, Roman Catholic church records in India, gravestone memorials, oral family narratives, photographs, letters, ancestry.com and published fictional literature to discover and reinvent a trace (for that is the reality) of my family narrative in India. A result from my paper-chase, an extract from a family letter, concludes this chapter. The letter written on 28 November 1938, to Agnes, living in Auckland, New Zealand, was from her brother Thomas Menasse, who at the time was living in Khurda Road, India.

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The Trotter-nama: A Chronicle 1977–1984 In The Trotter-nama, Sealy interrogates issues of identity within the context of what it meant to be called Anglo-Indian historically and how this has evolved into present-day issues for Anglo-Indians around belonging and community. Sealy dedicates his novel to the ‘Other Anglo-Indians’, which indicates recognition of a group of people who identify as such and have been represented as such in historical and political terms. Yet Anglo-­ Indian is a relatively more recent twentieth-century term, representing ambiguous categories of people who could not be defined as either pure Indian or pure British. The reality for Anglo-Indians was that, because they were of mixed parentage (father British/European, mother Indian), they were both favoured and denigrated by the British, depending on the colonial politics of the day. Their very existence as a community of people was not recognised under civil law, yet by virtue of their birth they were discriminated against in employment (Younger 1987, pp. 11–15, 22–23) and were seen as half-castes and regarded as impure, as well as physically and mentally inferior to both the British and Indians (Younger 1987, p. 16). The Trotter-nama is situated in India and relates the lives and fortunes of the seven generations of Trotters, an Anglo-Indian family whose lineage began with Justin Aloysius Trottoire, a French mercenary, who made his fortune in India and established the ancestral home, Sans Souci, near the fictitious city of Nakhlau. The novel spans 200 years of British colonisation of India, from the 1790s through to Indian Independence in 1947 and its aftermath. Justin Trottoire, a ‘French’ soldier, who comes to India in the 1750s, builds his home Sans Souci in the style of a French chateau. He eats French cuisine, dresses in European style and imports French furniture. He tries to recreate a piece of France in India. However, the chateau is never properly finished, and Justin becomes increasingly absorbed into the culture of his adopted home. He marries Sultana—from the line of the Prophet— and keeps three mistresses or bibis in different towers at the chateau. He is very much lord and master of his domain but gradually lets go of external power as he undergoes a spiritual crisis. He laments, But what is this India? Is it not a thousand shifting surfaces which enamour the newcomer and then swallow him up? It allows him the many titles of victory while obliging him to accept a single function, that of conqueror. The very divisiveness that allowed him in enmeshes him. How is he to grasp what cannot be held—what in fact holds him fast? (Sealy 1990, p. 134)

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Justin is alluding to the dialectic where both conqueror and conquered are fashioned by the nature of conquest, caught in the power struggle, in the same making of history. As a Frenchman in India, Justin belongs to the coloniser or conqueror class and is influenced by its dominant discourse. However, living in India, with all its cultural diversity, disturbs what he believes is true, how he thinks a conqueror should be. He anglicises his name to Trotter, in keeping with the dominant British discourse. He begins wearing Muslim clothes and eating only spicy Indian food, in a sense trying to be Indian, but then realises that ‘no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn Indian (any more than he could revert to a European) and that it was best if he were reconciled to the fact and became a third thing…’ (Sealy 1990, p. 195). Through Justin’s identity remodelling, Sealy is questioning the rigidity of naming—of being named French or Indian, for these identities are produced by converging forces which are always subject to change. Justin’s ‘third thing’ is an identity in process, a fluidity that enables him to make sense of his internal and external world. Rather than holding onto fixed ideas of what it means to be either Indian or French and imposing these on himself and others, he is involved in the creation of new blends, new formations, new categories of people. He continues building his chateau ‘and saw that instead of a spiritless Provencal chateau replicated on Indian soil, or a humdrum Nakhlau mansion after the traditional manner, there had grown up in San Souci something altogether new’ (Sealy 1990, p. 233). The ‘nama’ or chronicle is delivered to the reader, by the narrator Eugene Trotter, the ‘chosen’ Anglo-Indian Trotter who continues the family trait of one blue eye, one brown. The narrative begins with Eugene reflecting on his world travels, ostensibly undertaken to reconnect the narrative fragments of the diasporic Anglo-Indian Trotters into a unified, coherent and complete family story. As Eugene says, ‘and the result for the chronicler, a paper-chase. Because we came from all over, not just England, and went all over, not just to England…And so we forget. Past masters in the art of forgetting, my people’ (Sealy 1990, p. 7). As the nama unfolds, we realise that a coherent story is impossible to attain. The Trotter chronicle, ‘not history’ (Sealy 1990, p.  7), as Eugene is careful to point out, begins with Justin Trotter’s death as he falls out of a hot-air balloon while floating above Sans Souci. The nama ends with Eugene misplacing the chronicle and resuming his life in the city of his birth, Nakhlau, his own Trotter origins in question and the Trotter chronicle lost forever. The origins of the chosen Trotter, Eugene, are brought into disrepute. His

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father was not a Trotter, but an Indian, his mother, a Burmese of mixed race, the whole Trotter line a mixture of truth and myth. The Sans Souci estate is sold off and dismantled, but the Trotter remnants continue to live on the outskirts of their former ancestral home. As a means to survive their displacement in the political machinations of the colonial disengagement, the Trotters become globetrotters. Globally dispersed, the Trotter genealogy becomes as increasingly fragmented as their memories. Sealy is highlighting that our identities are a composite of many factors, our genealogies a mixture of truth and myth, but that our language and social structures encourage us to think in terms of either/or—we are either male or female, French or Indian, Muslim or Hindu. The names or labels themselves become reified, retold as truths and perpetuated through family stories and sanctioned histories. Simon During in his book Cultural Studies points out ‘It is impossible to exist in society without a proper name, without being located within the set of identity-granting institutions into which one is born: family or kin-group, nation, ethnic community, gender’ (2005, p.  152). This use of specific labels or names often serves to fix us into essentialised identities that deny the reality of multiple ways of being. Justin Trotter’s first wife, Sultana, spends her life at Sans Souci collecting and naming things in order to make sense of a world that she has no control over. Naming things is her way of asserting some personal power, making the unreal tangible, but it is not enough to keep her alive and she gradually fades away to her death. As a mother, Sultana is not able to name her son because once she has done this, he will become separate from her, just another object, one of many in the world. It is interesting to note that Justin also does not initiate any naming of his son, which may indicate an ambivalence about the legitimacy of his lineage through the birth of his Anglo-Indian son. Their son grows up nameless until he is given one by the Tibetan lama. As they are nearing Calcutta, the lama says, ‘You must have a name in this city little one…I will call you after a foreign friend of mine in the high country: Mikhail’ (Sealy 1990, p. 171). Sultana’s son prefers Mik (a palindrome on Kipling’s Kim), and so he is named and given an identity. Mik also represents the first generation of Anglo-Indians, or Eurasians as they were then called, and his lack of a name mirrors the lack of Anglo-Indian identity in colonial Indian history. It is only through their naming that Anglo-Indians become visible in the world of official names and discourses. The Trotter-nama is Sealy’s naming of Anglo-Indians, hence giving them an existence in time and space, but as always with Sealy there is a

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caveat. As Justin Trotter falls to his death from the hot-air balloon, he reflects, ‘I will suffer nothing, simply a change of identity—and what of that? Did I not ask for my stone to read: Justin Aloysius Trotter who lived and died’ (Sealy 1990, p. 35). The name, the identity, including that of Anglo-Indians, is not immutable or solid; it is always changing. The elevation of Justin through ‘hot air’ is possibly an extravagant metaphor for Western enlightenment thinking that was the prominent ideology of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century imperialism, providing an underlying justification for Western colonial expansion over the East. ‘Hot air’, in the sense of being empty or without substance, literally becomes hot air that enables Justin to view his personal empire Sans Souci, but in the end it also causes his demise, indicating the tenuous and displaceable nature of hegemonic discourses.

Magical Realism: The Narrative Vehicle The lack of documented sources may be one of the reasons Sealy has chosen not to write a realistic historical novel about Anglo-Indians. It may also be that writing a solely realist story about this community of people would be an act of collusion with the hegemonic representations of history that excluded such marginalised groups. However, in order to recuperate Anglo-Indians into a history that has been either unrepresented or misrepresented, Sealy has chosen the narrative literary form of magical realism. For it is only through the imagination and its interaction with what is known to be real that he can restore to Anglo-Indians their sense of belonging and being a part of an Indian history that impacted not only at the global, political level but on individual lives as well. Set within the colonial and postcolonial discourses of India, The Trotter-nama is a magical realist polemic that blends fact and fiction, the literal and the figurative to produce an Anglo-Indian mythology that is accessible to us all. For as Linda Conrad (1993, p. 386) states, ‘The Trotter-nama’s magic realism, with all its ebullience and complexity, gives a marginalized community an etiological myth and a fictional voice’. It is ironic that Sealy’s magical realist tale might provide a more representative account of Anglo-Indian history than has hitherto been inscribed and published. Magical realism is a contested concept in current literary and cultural studies because it is unable to be definitively contained. The term was coined by a German art critic Franz Roh in 1925 and was taken up by Alejo Carpentier who wrote the essay ‘De lo real maravilloso’, or

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marvellous real, in 1948 (Hart 2004, p. 306). Through magical realism, the interplay between the literal and metaphoric, the real and the imagination, Sealy is unpacking the layers of Western ideologies and values and the destructiveness of their arrogant transportation to the Eastern context. Magical realism thus creates a different space for the dispossessed, the invisible and the silenced to take the stage and direct the play. In terms of language, magical realism is an oxymoron, bringing together the contradictory ideas of magic and real to form a new and fluid identity of representation that contains possibilities of the unreal, or magical, being present in the real and the real or factual being available to magic. As a literary form, it is a way of connecting fact and fiction, myth and history, the real and imaginary, the literal and metaphorical (Linguanti et al. 1999, p. 5), and recovering invisible or forgotten stories that are unavailable to, or excluded from, more realist modes of writing. For most people, the Anglo-Indian story remains hidden, elusive and unreported. Anglo-­ Indians are a racially and culturally diverse group of no one fixed abode, having dispersed globally since the Independence of India in 1947.1 The nama of seven generations of Trotters is a metaphor for the lives of a group of real people and a community, produced in colonial India and abandoned by the colonising power when the British left India to ‘home rule’. According to Glenn D’Cruz, ‘Sealy’s rewriting of Anglo-Indian history…presents an inaugural vision of a past within which Anglo-Indians can recognize the minutiae of their culture life—their furniture, their heroes, their religious iconography’ (2003, p. 118). As I inserted my own reading into Sealy’s magical realist chronicle, the unknowable and inaccessible opened to becoming both knowable and available to me. Without knowing Agnes and her family in India, as Sealy’s words sang from the pages, I was propelled into a parodic glimpse of their multiple realities. Sealy’s history, different from the traditional British histories found in Western sources, places the Anglo-Indian at the centre of discourse, eroding the truthfulness of colonial discourses. One of the major historical events in British India was the 1857 First War of Independence,2 also known as the Indian Mutiny. This was a watershed event that catapulted India into being proclaimed part of the British Empire. Prior to the First 1  The Indian Independence Act 1947 partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. Today India is a republic. 2  First War of Independence is a contested term, also known historically as the Indian Mutiny or Indian Rebellion in British discourse.

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War of Independence, the British East India Company controlled the economic and strategic environment through its armies of clerks and soldiers. With exact deliberation, Sealy rewrites the siege of Lucknow 1857 as the relief of Nakhlau from an Anglo-Indian point of view. He describes how the Trotters residing at Sans Souci escape in disguise as the Indian sepoys are advancing. Philippa and Thomas Henry Trotter seek help from their Indian workers: The family decided to wait till it was dark and then go the house of Durga Das to ask refuge. The old dhobi-and-dyer stood in the doorway chewing pan with fastidious incisors…He addressed Thomas Henry, who was standing in the shadows still in European dress and content as in the past to leave all such transactions to his dark-skinned wife. (Sealy 1990, p. 333)

Durga Das does not help them, nor the potter, but the tailor Wazir Ali gives them shelter and is killed for doing so, while the dhobi’s son Dukhi warns them of impending danger. He helps them escape to the residency where they live under siege for some months with Europeans, Indians and Anglo-Indians. It is Dukhi who is initially charged with the task of getting a message through to General Sir Crawley Campelot. However, Thomas Henry, the middle Trotter, begs to go with him, and dressed as an Indian, face darkened, he is placed at the centre of the story as the hero of the hour who gets a message through to the British reinforcements, advising them not to go through the town but to take an alternative route. Thomas Henry receives the Victoria Cross for his exhausting two-hour journey with Dukhi whose bravery goes unrewarded. Sealy names this section of the story ‘how history is made’ (1990, p. 343) and compresses their journey into a ‘breathless’, sped-up précis of the last moments before reaching the Commander-in-Chief (1990, p. 347). In representing the siege of Lucknow, with an Anglo-Indian hero at the centre, Sealy is refiguring history with the aid of fiction. He uses hyperbole, irony and humour to draw the reader’s attention to this other version, bringing in a sense of disbelief or doubt that applies to both this account and the coloniser’s official historical one. Anglo-Indians did help the British during this war but any account of their bravery is difficult to find. In the novel, Thomas Henry’s uncle Cedric is given a cursory mention as having telegraphed a message through to the British forces in Punjab, forewarning them of the war. The forewarning by Cedric is based

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on the known recorded account of the Anglo-Indian telegraph operator George Brendish3 who performed this deed as the war took hold, but Sealy does not accord it the same centrality and recognition as his made­up version of Thomas Henry’s adventure. He displaces an important historical heroic act by an Anglo-Indian with his own fictionalised Anglo-Indian hero. Eugene Trotter, the last and chosen Trotter, loses the Trotter chronicle he has written. He lets go of the story, the fabrication of origins, the fabrications of history. The Trotter lineage is a farce. ‘Tell you the truth I made up the whole line—I mean joining up all those Trotters like that’ (Sealy 1990, p. 572). As Eugene returns to the city of his birth, Nakhlau, on the plane, he sits next to a journalist Peter Jonquil, who has been interviewing the remnants of the Anglo-Indian community. He has been to Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Bangalore and so on but not to Sans Souci. ‘A strange sad monadic people’, Peter Jonquil went on, ‘They speak a kind of English…They fantasize about the past. They improvise grand pedigrees. It’s like a Raj novel gone wrong’ (Sealy 1990, p. 560). What we are left with are stories. True stories, false stories, their validity depends on who is telling them and how they are told. The racially and culturally hybridised Anglo-Indians form the central concern of The Trotter-nama. The Trotter family represents the Anglo-Indian community in all its many facets and complexities, but in the end, theirs is not the definitive story for the journalist has not even heard of them. Eugene has the final say. He no longer has access to the ancestral home at Sans Souci, which has become a hotel. He lives with an Anglo-Indian family in Nakhlau and works as a freelance tourist guide in the city. He has travelled the world but appears content, as he describes his daily routines with a resigned humility, to remain in India that many are leaving. Does he really have a choice? ‘Me? Where to go? I don’t know. Here, you look into my eyes. See? Tell me now. Where to go?’ (Sealy 1990, p. 574). With one blue eye, one brown, indicative of an indeterminate identity that cannot be secured by language or history, Eugene remains in a marginalised cultural milieu that at least can provide some sense of home.

3  Brendish, S. (2003). George (William) Brendish and the Indian Mutiny of 1857. International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies, 7(1), 68–71. There are references to George Brendish and his deed in other sources too.

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The Everest Hotel: A Calendar The novel opens in the town of Drummondganj, ‘neither of the plains or of the hills’ (Sealy 1999, p. 16), with Ritu (whose name means season in Hindi), a Christian nun, arriving by train from Delhi to take up duties in the Hotel, now a rest home for the disabled and elderly, as part of her experience in humility. She is met by Cecelia, the Sister Superior, and Sister Neha. However, because there is a general strike in the town and the scooter rickshaw drivers are not supposed to be working, returning to the Hotel proves to be difficult. As the sisters are waiting in a strike-breaker rickshaw, with Cecelia unable to back down from her insistence that the rickshaw should take them home, the surrounding crowd begins to become unruly and threatening. At this point, we are introduced to another protagonist, Brij, who is part of the Strike calling for a separate state—Akashkhand—and also a friend to the residents of the Hotel. He rescues the nuns from mounting hostility, but during the chaos, Ritu’s suitcase is stolen, and all her possessions are lost. The suitcase is an important motif in the novel, for it signals the constraining borders of unitary identity constructions that Sealy seeks to critique. Ritu is a nun but she is also a daughter, a sister, a friend; however, as a nun she is discouraged from having emotional attachments, including those with other nuns and her family. Upon arrival at the Everest Hotel, Ritu is introduced to the other nuns who look after the residents and is then taken on a tour of the house by Miss Sampson, who was a friend of the owner Jed’s deceased wife Fay and has a long connection with the place. Rose Sampson quips: ‘Everest gets hotter the higher you climb. That’s the local joke. On the roof, where he is, she jabs a nicotined finger, is hell’ (Sealy 1999, p. 29). He refers to Jed, who is 90, has advancing senility and, in the final phase of his life, is writing his own Book of the Dead. Other residents include the twins, Prem and Pravin, who are ‘a welter of paddling hands and oscillating heads’ (Sealy 1999, p. 30), Major Bakshi who ‘drinks like a fish…’ (p. 30), the seaman, ‘a sailor or something…’ (p. 31) from Latvia, a goongi ‘she mimes a deaf mute…nobody knows her name’ (p.  31), and Miss Chatterjee, ‘pregnant if you please at sixty-nine’ (p. 31). Miss Sampson owns a pet mongoose, bemoans the incessant enemy dust and repeatedly refers to Nehru, whom she once knew, and his goal of rural electrification, while ironically the town/region undergoes daily power cuts in the summer heat. Ritu’s first duties are to look after Jed, who has not eaten for three

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days and has locked himself in his living quarters on the roof. Previously a mountaineer, collector of botanical specimens and erstwhile ladies’ man, he spends his declining days wrestling with his progressive dementia and making life difficult for his caretakers. He is almost beyond caring about what others think of him, while his mind journeys backwards over his life and loves, including that of his beloved wife Fay who died at a young age in 1942. Resting at the foothills of the Himalayas with Mount Everest in view and bordering the Anglo cemetery is the Hotel that may represent a place where the extremes of life and death are negotiated. The Everest Hotel is a narrative or, more precisely, a multiplicity of narratives that conveys the lives of a group of eclectic and eccentric people, who live in the Everest Hotel, and those connected with them in various ways, set in the context of a temporal pattern that corresponds to the cycle of the seasons. Written in 1998, and located in postcolonial India, the novel summons remnants of a former British India that still survive in the Anglo-Indian characters, in the Hotel itself, and in the memories of its residents, as well as through the gravestones of the British people laid to rest. The Everest Hotel advances the idea that perhaps a postcoloniality driven by the interrogation of such an increasingly obsolete construct as the British Empire is now less relevant. The Everest or Ever-rest cemetery, which shares a boundary wall with the Hotel is mostly full of dead British people who died during the period of British India. Now a haven for gamblers, who ‘prefer the newer, lower tombstones’ (Sealy 1999, p. 49) to the older mausoleums, there are only two plots left, one of which is allocated to Jed, who as well as being the owner of the Hotel is the cemetery’s secretary. The cemetery thus becomes a symbol for dying Anglo-India and with it the vestiges of an era of British colonisation, a historically brief, though highly significant, period of time in India’s history. The same year this novel was published (1998), I was walking through the old cemetery located outside of the Kamptee Cantonment, searching for memorial stones with the surname Menasse, which I never found. However, I was moved by the memorials to the British soldiers, their wives and children and a legacy to the reality of their lives and deaths during British Indian rule. In the Everest Hotel, differences literally co-exist; there is no esteemed majority. Sealy is intimating that the idea of a majority is a political construct that may not cohere across different contexts. Inserting the traditionally politically and socially marginalised into the novel’s multiple narratives creates a hybridised ‘space of enunciation’, in which the excluded

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or denied discourses are re-appropriated. For this is a novel that produces what Homi Bhabha calls a ‘Third space of enunciation’ (1994, p. 37) in which difference or hybridity is acknowledged as a possible site of reconciliation of opposites, or the levelling of traditional power hierarchies. The Hotel residents include racially and culturally hybridised people who live within a dying and stagnant environment centred on Jed, an Anglo-Indian ‘who wore a raw silk Indian jacket every day the British ruled, and switched to British suits the day they left’ (Sealy 1999, p. 84), possibly denoting a continuing signification of his otherness. The nuns who care for the sick and dying are also dead in some sense. Their religious vows dictate a custody of the senses that prescribes a death to desire. They represent a religious minority in India, who look to the Christian God as their authority. However, many of the prescriptions and rules they live by are culturally constructed and enforced. Ritu is expected to conform to the privileged system of values that define the behaviours and emotions of a nun and consequently marginalises other human desires. However, she violates religious vows by forming an attachment to Masha, a mute orphan, and becoming her surrogate mother. In the novel, the nuns’ dominant discourse is further displaced by the laughter and life of the child Masha who finally learns to speak again. The events of the novel are aligned to the natural rhythms of the seasons, based on Kalidasa’s ancient division of the seasons in his Ritusamhara (Sealy 1990, Afterword), and time follows a trajectory that is indifferent to human relationships or humanist teleology. While one of the narrative threads follows a triangular love story between Ritu and Brij and Inge, there are a number of other generic leads that do not develop consistently and progressively into their respective narrative genres but devolve into a hybridised, multi-generic narrative with many endings, none of which determine the novel’s closure. The novel is replete with intertextual references to historical events that occurred during British colonial occupation of India that dismantle an underpinning Orientalist ideology; the disruption of fixed centres is negotiated through the serial extensions of margins, which undermine the mutuality of specific centres and their margins. In The Everest Hotel, through a multiplicity of genres, the interrogation of Orientalist constructions, the displacement of humanist teleology for the interpretation of time and the refiguration of margins, Sealy problematises the sustainability of totalising monoliths, including postcolonialism, which reproduce notions of fixed and stable centres.

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Sealy displaces the British colonial discourse from the centre of authority on famous ‘historical’ events in The Everest Hotel. All these accounts are the work of fiction. Sealy’s use of intertextual allusions may also be suggestive of the novel’s own departure from realist representations as part of his enquiry into how meaning and knowledge are reproduced. In Said’s (1995) discussion on Orientalism, he contends that knowledge of the East or Orient, particularly prevalent during British and French colonialism, was produced by Western scientists, scholars, adventurers, soldiers, missionaries, based on their own cultural constructions of the Other. However, these views, for this is what they were, came to be regarded as factual, rational, proven truths. Said points out that through processes of cultural hegemony, European ideas, identity, people and culture were positioned as superior to non-European ones. He argues: Under the general heading of knowledge of the Orient, and within the umbrella of Western hegemony over the Orient during the period from the end of the eighteenth century, there emerged a complex Orient suitable for study in the academy, for display in the museum, for reconstruction in the colonial office, for theoretical illustration in anthropological, biological, linguistic, racial and historical theses about mankind and the universe, for instances of economic and sociological theories of development, revolution, cultural personality, national or religious character. (1995, pp. 7–8)

According to Said, Western knowledge disciplines, including science and history, during the post-enlightenment period, promulgated Orientalist discourses, claiming accurate knowledge of the East based on their own supposedly innate superior intellect and culture. In The Everest Hotel, through his reinventions of specific nineteenthand twentieth-century Orientalist discourses, Sealy disturbs the very foundations of the legitimacy of officially recorded historical and scientific accounts of specific events, at the same time as showing their production within the parameters of fiction’s possible multiple readings. History is complex, and although there are undeniable events that have occurred, the authenticity of the total discourse is contingent upon the locus of power, and its context, and upon which party is relating the narrative. An account of a shared historical event told by the colonising power will not hold the same truth for those who are subjugated. As part of his project to interrogate the reliability of Orientalist historical discourses, Sealy relates Jed’s memories of his ascent of Mount Everest. Jed is on the South Col,

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three days from base camp with two telegrams in his pocket. One is from Nehru in prison saying, ‘The Nation waits, all India holds her breath’, and the other from Rose Sampson, containing the message, ‘Fay serious come at once’ (Sealy 1999, p. 236). Since Fay died in 1942, we can surmise that this attempt on Everest was in that year, pre-dating Indian national Independence and the ascent of Everest in 1953 by Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Jed ignores the second telegram and continues to climb, but bad weather sets in and he almost dies, rescued in time by his fellow climber Sherpa Dorji, but loses six toes to frostbite, ‘Enough foot left to hold a shoe, just’ (Sealy 1999, p. 237). There are a number of possible readings of this insertion of the failed ascent of Mount Everest into the narrative, highlighting the plurality of Anglo-Indian identity and their community history. The naming of the mountain Everest itself was part of the British imperial endeavour, representing an act of colonial possession. In 1857, a significant year in British-­ Indian history, the British Royal Geographical Society suggested the name in honour of George Everest, who had been the previous Surveyor General of India. Everest disagreed with their choice because it could not be written in Hindi, nor pronounced by the local people. He favoured an indigenous name, but the Society, which obviously wielded a great deal of power and influence, argued that there were a number of local names that were not official and therefore not legitimate and, in 1865, adopted the name still recognised worldwide today, an enduring legacy of colonial rule. More recently, the Chinese have been advocating for the mountain to be renamed ‘Chomolungma’, its Tibetan name, arguing this was its original one, while the Nepalese government has officially named it ‘Sagamatha’ as part of its own nationalist reclamation project. Jed’s determination to climb the mountain and Nehru’s telegram urging Jed to succeed for the sake of the nation indicate a postcolonial nationalism that is as spurious in its hegemonic ambitions as the colonial appropriation of the mountain’s naming. Significantly, it is Jed, an Anglo-Indian, who is making the ascent on behalf of Indian national pride, suggesting the fluidity of the Anglo-Indian position in both British India and postcolonial India. This may be indicative of how Anglo-Indians were positioned at the borders in the binary opposition of colonial power and nationalism. What is perhaps important to underscore, in Sealy’s use of counter-­ discursive narratives in the above intertextual representations, is that rather than reversing the privileged power of colonising discourses, he is bringing attention to the fluid space of the excluded middle, which is

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usually submerged or erased by binary opposition. In so doing, he is providing an understanding of how historical and scientific discourses are created while advancing the status of a space of cultural ambiguity and interchange. While the British ruled India, the mixed-race AngloIndians experienced a certain amount of capricious privilege. However, after Indian Independence, they became displaced and globally dispersed; for many, India was no longer a place of ‘ever rest’ or home. I was reminded during my reading of the Everest Hotel that often our ancestors live on in our hearts and memories. We look at their photographs, listen to stories about them, visit them in cemeteries. I increasingly realised that my family narrative in India, belonged to a displaced Anglo-­ Indian community in India or the diaspora, alive or at rest, accessible to me through, for the most part fiction and a smattering of fact.

Conclusion In the quest for laying my Anglo-Indian family narrative to rest, I discovered a letter, dated 28 November 1938, written by my great-great-uncle Thomas Menasse, India, to his beloved sister Agnes, living in Onehunga, New Zealand. Written during the British rule of India, his letter pre-dates Indian Independence by nine years but forewarns a shift in colonial power and privilege for Indians and Anglo-Indians. Thomas writes: All the children, including Phyllis, Edna & Alice are doing well. The two youngest Reggie, who is at St. Francis de Sales’ school at Nagpur and Inez in St Joseph’s convent at Waltair, only a mile from Vizag, will be coming home early next month for their Christmas vacation. Reggie is now 17 years old & we are thinking of putting him into the telegraph Dept. Inez (15 years) has two more years schooling to do. It is now very difficult for our boys to get work as the Indians are monopolising all Government Departments. Even in this small place where we are living young Anglo Indian men go about after dark from house to house begging for alms. It is most heart rendering that no work can be found for them….I hope you have succeeded in completing poor dear Charlie’s tomb stone. Great preparations are being made in this small station for the coming Christmas festivities…Your ever loving and affectionate brother Tom. (Courtesy of I. Lyster, NZ)

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As a backdrop to Sealy’s prologue in The Trotter-nama, ‘Take up the Grey Man’s Burden… (1990), Thomas’ letter as historical grey literature, signals that he has adopted an Anglo-Indian identity (whereas Agnes was never labelled Anglo-Indian) and that in his community, increasingly Anglo-Indians’ favoured position and alliance with the British rulers was being dismantled. The family in Tom’s letter are my ancestors who lived in Khurda Road, Vizag, Waltair, Kharagpur, Nagpur, Jubbulpore, were educated in Roman Catholic convents, and who worked in occupations such as dentist, doctor, telegraph clerk and midwife. These families were the Anglo-Indians who became visible through Tom’s letter. Where they are now is unknown to me. Charles, Agnes’ husband, died in 1937. Agnes died in 1940. Both are buried and rest in peace in the Mangere Public Cemetery, Auckland. Sealy’s works, The Trotter-nama, through the narrative mode of magical realism, and The Everest Hotel with its multiplicity of readings and ‘third space of enunciation’ resurrect disinherited, multiple identities and communities of belonging for Anglo-Indians and their descendants, in India and the diaspora. Both of Sealy’s novels offered a plurality of compelling versions of my family history in India, pre- and post-Indian Independence. Since I know very little real information about this part of my family, Sealy’s writing allowed me to access the possible fates and fortunes of my great grandmother and her Anglo-Indian family in India that have otherwise been unrecoverable. Acknowledgements  This chapter includes extracts from my research paper The Forms and Functions of Hybridity in Allan Sealy’s The Trotter-nama, presented in partial fulfilment for the Postgraduate Diploma in Arts in English in 2006 (published in 2012 in the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies), and from my unpublished  thesis, Where the Postmodern Meets the Postcolonial: Allan Sealy’s Fiction After The Trotter-nama, presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English, Massey University, 2011, on selected works by I. Allan Sealy.

References Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. Routledge. Conrad, L. (1993). I.  Allan Sealy. In E.  S. Nelson (Ed.), Writers of the Indian diaspora: A Biobibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press.

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D’Cruz, G. (2003). My Two Left Feet: The Problem of Anglo-Indian Stereotypes in Post-Independence Indo-English Fiction. Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 38(2), 105–123. During, S. (2005). Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction. Routledge. Hart, S.  M. (2004). Cultural Hybridity, Magical Realism, and the Language of Magic in Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist. Romance Quarterly, 51(4), 304–312. Linguanti, E., Casotti, F., & Concilio, C. (Eds.). (1999). Coterminous Worlds: Magical Realism and Contemporary Post-Colonial Literature in English. Rodopi. Said, E. (1995). Orientalism. Penguin. Sealy, I. A. (1990). The Trotter-nama: A Chronicle 1977–1984. Penguin. Sealy, I. A. (1999). The Everest Hotel: A Calendar. Anchor. Younger, C. (1987). Anglo-Indians: Neglected Children of the Raj. B. R. Publishing.

Index1

A Abbott, J. H., 11, 20, 21, 66, 67, 72, 73, 87, 89, 90 Abraham, J., 132 Abrogation, 244 Accents, 76, 159, 160, 162, 177, 178, 189, 192, 193, 232, 409 Accent trainers, 291n5 Acculturation, 115, 235, 248 Acker, S., 285 Africa, 68, 168 Agency, 10, 234, 253, 257, 266, 282, 286, 289, 292, 296, 299, 355, 356 Albania, 133, 148 Alibhai-Brown, Y., 156n3, 161, 163 Alienation, 33, 73, 273n20, 336n1, 388 Allahabad, 21, 65, 73, 207 Allegue, L., 395 Almeida, R., 4, 8, 73, 80, 156, 182–184, 189, 189n10

American Indians, 114 Ancestry, 17, 30, 45, 55, 64, 74, 82, 94, 103, 158, 189n10, 211, 212, 258, 284, 304, 312, 346, 372, 409 Andaman Islands, 101, 127, 136n4, 315 Anderson, B., 18, 124, 311 Andrews, R., 1, 4, 5, 7–9, 127, 141n14, 183, 186, 236, 273, 280, 281, 284, 329, 347, 393 Anecdote, 126, 146 Anglo-Burmans, 7, 64, 69, 70, 81, 82, 85, 93–96, 99–103 Anglo-Indian Association of Southern India, 21, 66 Anglo-Indian Associations, 6, 17–33, 57, 58, 65, 66, 72, 73, 90, 93, 103, 135n3, 188, 199, 209, 214, 293 Anglo-Indian Day, 126, 172, 199n14

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Andrews, M. S. Raj (eds.), Anglo-Indian Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64458-1

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INDEX

Anglo-Indian Empire League, 20, 21, 66, 87 Anglo-Indian lunch, 393 Anglo-Indian reunion, 172, 184, 245, 305, 309, 316 Anglo-Indian Study Circle and Book Club, 25 Anglo-Pakistani, 99, 211, 223, 227 Anglophilia, 161, 163, 242, 248 Anglophones, 31, 82 Anthony, F., 2, 8, 20, 23, 26–30, 33, 56, 57, 71–74, 79, 84, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 124n18, 125, 135, 135n3, 136, 209, 213, 219, 268, 271, 272, 282, 283, 289, 309, 330, 333, 348n3 Britain’s Betrayal in India: the Story of the Anglo-Indian Community, 23–24 Anthropologist, 7, 112, 123, 186, 393–395 anthropology, 2, 3, 113, 394 Anthropomorphic, 396 Apple, M. W., 285 Appropriation, 11, 244, 358, 423 Archive, 2, 56, 310, 388, 404, 405 Arendt, H., 310n2, 345 Arnett, E. J., 380 Asansol, 9, 127, 141n14, 166, 231–248, 347 Asia, 81 Assimilation, 5, 8, 11, 114, 114n3, 147, 151, 160–164, 173, 312, 314, 316, 319, 373, 374, 379–381, 385 assimilative policies, 372, 376, 379–383, 385 Atalay, Z. N., 141 Australasia Australia, 5, 6, 8–10, 29, 30, 73, 103, 120n6, 135n2, 182–185, 187, 192, 206, 212, 219,

231–243, 236n2, 239n3, 240n4, 245–248, 308, 315, 324, 329, 331, 336, 338, 393, 405 Australian English, 244, 245 Autoethnography, 12, 391–406 Averill, J., 134 B Backward communities, 31 Baghdad, 69 Bakhtin, M., 244, 354 Bandyopadhyay, D., 111 Banerjee, M., 143 Bangalore/Bengaluru, 10, 18, 24, 31, 84, 96, 127, 279, 279n1, 280, 282–283, 287, 291, 292, 294, 296, 300, 418 Barth, F., 112, 113, 123, 124 BBC, 80, 103, 170 Bear, L., 54, 123, 127, 213, 215 Beauvoir, S., 256, 406 Belliappa, J., 10, 287, 293, 294 Belonging/sense of belonging/ belongingness, 12, 24, 33, 125–128, 132–134, 137, 147, 150, 151, 167, 173, 178, 198, 248, 269, 272, 284, 303–319, 325, 326, 339, 383, 385, 386, 388, 394, 396, 397, 412, 415, 425 Bengal, 20, 40, 46, 51, 55, 125, 212, 245, 254, 255, 271, 284 Bengali, 125, 126, 138, 143–147, 269 Besant, A., 71, 72 Bhabha, H., 160, 170, 235, 245, 247, 406, 421 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 138, 140n10, 140n11, 147, 150, 272n18, 307 Bihar, 127, 237, 331 Birmingham, 162, 162n8, 163

 INDEX 

Black, 49, 116, 160n7, 168, 170, 194, 245, 258, 326, 337, 392, 401, 403 Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME), 169 Blackness studies, 180 Blood, 32, 33, 55, 65, 74, 79, 80, 82, 90, 94, 95, 117, 186, 259, 298 Blunt, A., 19, 25, 27, 29, 56, 71, 119–121, 120n6, 125, 127, 135n2, 182, 183, 206, 280, 282–284, 329, 331 Bollywood, 281 Bombay/Mumbai, 18, 25, 31, 32, 32n37, 40, 43–45, 58, 66, 68, 70, 73, 75, 76, 207, 209, 347, 393, 418 Bopiah, T., 32, 32n37 Boucher, N., 133 Bourdieu, P., 134 Bow Barracks Forever, 121 Bower, J. A. H., 24 Brah, A., 325–329, 339, 340 Bressey, C., 167, 168 Brexit, 173 British Nationality Act of 1948, 156n2, 157, 157n6 Britishness, 64, 67, 81, 95, 161, 166, 171, 325, 326 British Raj, 78, 79, 236, 311, 312 Brubaker, R., 138n6 Brunsma, D. L., 128 Buckingham, J. S., 43, 44, 53 Burchett, W. G., 259–261 Trek Back from Burma, 261 Burgess, E. W., 173 Burma/Burmah, 6, 7, 56, 63–103, 241, 259 Butler, K., 11, 323, 324, 330, 336–340 The Secret Vindaloo, 324, 336

429

C Calcutta, 18, 20–23, 25, 28, 40, 43–45, 54, 55, 58, 65, 66, 74, 76, 83, 84, 86, 96, 122, 125, 127, 148, 205, 207, 213, 238, 241, 245, 259, 263n9, 332, 335, 347, 414, 418 Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society (CAISS), 132, 147–151 Calcutta Apprenticing Society, 18 Calcutta Association, 20 Calcutta Journal, 43, 44 Call centres, 291n5 Campagnac, C. H., 69, 83–87, 89–101, 103 Canada, 5, 29, 30, 68, 103, 184, 187, 192, 206, 214, 266, 266n12, 329 Caplan, L., 22, 31, 119–121, 125, 134, 213, 280, 283, 284, 347, 359 Caplan, P., 293 Career, 24, 29, 84, 162, 193, 238, 263, 279, 283, 285–287, 290–293, 295, 296, 298–300, 324 Caste, 42, 51, 55, 85, 123, 137, 141, 210, 254, 255n3, 262, 266, 311, 317, 349, 349n4, 360–362, 361n8, 366 Catholics, 83, 145, 215, 260, 283 Caucasian, 158, 337 Census, 54, 55, 65, 81–83, 99, 120, 124n18, 135n3, 168, 185, 186, 196, 197, 206, 214, 218, 314, 361 Census reports, 6, 18 Chain migration, 120n7 Chakravarti, U., 284n4 Chambers, E.W., 20 Charlton-Stevens, U. E., 7, 21, 25–30, 40, 45, 84, 135, 136, 136n4, 159, 208, 209, 213, 261, 263, 281, 285, 290, 309, 312, 314, 315, 333

430 

INDEX

Chattakkari, 387, 387n24 Chatterjee, P., 138, 139, 272, 284 Chew, D., 6, 10, 11, 254, 261–263, 265, 266, 270–272, 280, 281, 283, 284, 289, 290 Chinese, 181, 193, 194, 423 Christianity/Christians, 12, 30, 47, 48, 50, 52, 68, 73, 76, 101, 121, 124, 131, 134, 138–140, 140n10, 142, 144–146, 149, 158, 166, 169, 183, 186, 189, 192, 207, 210, 212, 214, 215n13, 216, 218–221, 223, 224, 227, 239, 241, 246, 263n9, 281, 297–299, 304, 305, 312, 334, 347, 348, 348n3, 349n4, 361, 361n7, 381, 387n24, 419, 421 Christmas, 142, 144, 145, 148, 214, 216, 220, 241, 242, 306, 366, 384, 424 Chronotopes, 354 Chughtai, I., 265, 266 Churches, 83, 169, 196, 198, 209, 216, 221, 279, 283, 291, 298, 305, 306, 349n4, 351–353, 355, 362, 363, 365, 366, 381, 382, 410, 411 Churchill, W., 136n4 Citizenship, 5, 79, 113n2, 125, 127, 131–151, 197, 334, 336, 337, 346, 375–377, 377n16, 380, 383 Civil Rights Movement, 157, 163 Coalition, 139n8 Cochin Creole Portuguese, 362 Collective memory, 11, 345, 346, 349–354, 358, 362, 363 Colonialism, 10, 47–49, 59, 118, 181, 192, 253–255, 266n12, 267, 269, 284, 306, 316, 329, 346, 347, 373, 374, 394, 422

Coloured, 74, 76, 85, 121, 157, 171, 193, 304, 325, 335, 340, 363 Colourism, 69, 73 Commercial and Patriotic Association, 18 Commonwealth, 25, 29, 68, 99, 100, 102, 155, 178, 324, 334 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 156n2, 157, 157n6 Communist Party of India, 143 Community leaders, 31, 168, 284, 293, 294, 299 Congress, 56, 135, 136, 138, 143, 213 Conservative, 73, 86, 146, 162n8, 163, 164, 166, 304 Constitution of India Article 366(2), 4 Contentment, 162 Cosmopolitanism, 132, 140n11, 200, 260, 346 Costumes, 85, 296, 386 Country, 17, 23–25, 28–30, 32, 33, 51, 58, 68, 72, 76, 79, 99, 100, 102, 103, 121, 126, 140, 140n10, 142, 149, 156, 156n3, 158, 161, 163, 165, 169, 171, 172, 178, 180, 182–185, 187, 188, 191, 192, 199, 200, 206, 212, 218, 219, 224–227, 234, 236n2, 238, 239, 243, 245, 268–270, 304, 313, 324, 327, 330, 331, 333, 334, 346, 383, 403, 404, 414 Country music, 231, 232, 238, 239, 242, 243, 247 Crisis, 4, 8, 111–129, 219, 324, 329, 339, 350, 352, 354–362, 366, 367, 379, 381, 412 Cultural capital, 10, 282, 283, 289–291, 299 Cultural cross dressing, 397 Cultural memory, 345, 346, 351 Cultural Studies, 331, 346, 415

 INDEX 

D Dalhousie Institute Club, 146 Dalits, 271 Dance, 74, 77, 78, 126, 148, 159, 171, 199, 216, 221, 238, 241, 242, 306 Dancing, 164, 216, 240, 242 Das, A., 9 D’Costa, R., 12, 392–397 D’Cruz, C., 10 D’Cruz, G., 4, 254, 393, 394, 396, 401, 404 Midnight’s Orphans, 4, 254n2, 393, 394, 396, 401 Delgado, D. J., 128 Delhi, 18, 76, 283, 295, 419 Demonetisation, 8, 140 Derozio, H. L. V., 5, 52, 268–271 Derrida, J., 309 Desire, 11, 22, 24, 32, 53, 59, 67, 78, 93, 100, 101, 138, 140, 172, 183, 232, 237, 239, 240, 248, 265, 309, 313, 314, 323–340, 349, 377, 383, 386, 401, 404, 421 deSouza, S., 10 Devika, J., 343, 350, 361 Devji, F., 71 Dias, C., 347 Diaspora, 2, 4, 6, 11, 12, 71, 80, 161, 168, 169, 172, 312, 326, 338, 339, 347, 411, 424, 425 Difference, 3, 6, 7, 21, 32, 53, 54n6, 74, 86, 98, 124, 132, 159, 165, 179, 181n5, 182, 191, 197, 208, 209, 224, 244, 262, 263, 265, 267, 284, 305, 307, 309, 312, 365, 367, 384, 398, 420, 421 Discourse, 11, 40, 42, 49, 59, 155–173, 181, 233–235, 237, 242, 243, 245, 247, 268, 268n16, 272, 326, 328, 329, 333, 340, 344, 348–350, 359, 366, 397, 411, 413–416, 416n2, 421–424

431

Discrimination, 8, 55, 139, 158, 160n7, 165, 180, 188, 193–194, 200, 271, 315, 334, 337 Diwali, 142 Dodd, P., 164 Domicile, 82, 113, 136, 307 Domiciled European, 21, 26, 73, 74, 120n8 Dover, C., 24, 72, 81 Dravidian, 207 Dress/dress code, 121, 163, 222, 237, 285, 289, 294, 328, 348, 365, 405, 417 Dual identity, 206, 227, 285 DuBern, J. E., 66, 67, 83, 87 Duncan, S. J., 264–266, 266n12 Durand Institute, 238, 241 Dutch, 4, 30, 31, 362 Dutt, A., 121, 122, 122n15, 127 Dwyer, C., 167, 168 E Eagleton, T., 256, 259 East Africans, 102, 160 East India Club, 18 Eaton, P., 147 Ecological, 115, 116 Economy, 140, 141, 161, 166, 169, 290, 293, 345, 363 Educational policy, 286 Eig, J., 163 Emergency, 246, 258, 258n4 Emigration, 56–58, 79, 100, 102, 103, 125, 135, 136, 173, 213, 215, 221, 222, 224, 225, 332 Empire, 7, 23, 25, 26, 37, 40, 47, 49, 52, 63–73, 78, 81, 86–88, 101, 111, 161, 171, 207, 264, 268, 281, 304, 307, 308, 312, 315, 331, 339, 361n7, 379n20, 415, 416, 420

432 

INDEX

Empire League, 21, 66, 67, 73, 87, 90, 93 Empirical, 116 Endogamous, 29, 123, 281, 305, 308, 312 English language, 5, 30, 45, 46, 54, 271, 360 English medium, 121n13, 145, 279, 280, 282–283 Epistemology, 116 Erikson, E., 114, 115 Essex, 158, 171 Ethnic cleansing, 166 Ethnicity, 112, 113n2, 117, 126, 155n1, 158, 167, 169, 173, 178, 195–197, 206, 218, 222, 225, 266, 267, 346 Ethnographic research, 282 The Eurasian Anthem, 7, 37–42, 45–49, 52–54, 58, 59 Eurocentric, 246 European Association of Southern India, 20 F Facebook, 188, 199, 231 Faith, 48, 146, 241, 290, 298, 299, 381, 382 Fatherland, 25, 26, 56, 71, 328–330, 333–336 Feminist, 255, 256, 265, 284n4, 287, 394 Fenton, S., 162 Festival, 142, 144, 145, 148, 216, 241, 328, 363, 365 Films, 3, 6, 10–12, 78, 121, 122, 122n15, 128n21, 216, 221, 313, 360n6, 372, 372n2, 373, 373n4, 373n5, 373n6, 375–379, 381–388, 387n24, 391, 394, 400 Firangees/Feringees, 30, 348

First wave Anglo-Indians, 157–159, 171 Food habit, 237 Foucault, M., 311, 312 Fozdar, F., 255 Fragmentation, 387, 388 France, 412 French colonialism, 422 Frow, J., 398, 399 Furness, J., 6, 12 G Gandhi, G., 316, 317 Gangoli, G., 281 Geertz, C., 172, 395 Gellner, E., 113 Gender, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 115, 121, 122, 137, 253–257, 261–263, 265–267, 268n14, 273, 279–300, 305, 308, 311, 313–315, 329, 334, 355, 358, 359, 363, 406, 414 Generation, 17, 40, 71, 74, 85, 161, 179, 183, 184, 208, 211, 214, 223, 224, 265, 284, 284n3, 308, 312, 315, 326, 332, 339, 345, 351, 360, 366, 409, 412, 414, 416 Gidney, H., 21–28, 33, 55, 56, 70–74, 81, 83, 87–95, 101, 125, 136 Gidney Day, 95 Gilbert, A., 116, 232, 236, 236n2 Gilbert, D., 115, 118, 122 Gilroy, P., 159, 180 Goan Christian, 160 Green, I., 74–79, 84, 86 H Hage, G., 133, 134, 149, 236, 237, 239 White Nation, 239

 INDEX 

Half-castes, 51, 81, 120, 190, 256, 401, 412 Hastings, W., 40, 44 Hawes, C., 22, 40, 42–45, 52, 54, 54n6, 103, 118, 119, 261 Hay, P., 383 Heath, E., 164 Hedin, E. L., 17, 361 Hegemony/hegemonic, 139, 237, 243, 244, 253, 255–257, 273, 415, 422, 423 Heritage, 32, 72, 103, 115, 128, 146, 155n1, 156n3, 159, 160, 181, 183, 210–212, 223, 227, 237, 243, 245, 304, 305, 308, 309, 313, 318, 329, 393, 394, 396, 409 Heroine, 287 Hindi, 120, 126, 134, 144, 146, 244, 419, 423 Hinduism, 118, 219 Hindu nationalism, 281 Homeland, 11, 56, 70, 71, 118, 120, 127, 136, 310, 314, 315, 324–328, 331, 332, 336, 340, 361 Homing desire, 323–340 Homelessness, 13, 371–388 Hyphen/hyphenated, 8, 120, 158, 304, 305, 309, 310, 338, 346, 348 I Identity identity-consumption, 11, 358 identity politics, 56, 398 Igatpuri, 84, 158 Image criticism, 391 Imitation, 136, 160–164 Immigrants, 9, 155, 156n3, 157, 158, 160–163, 160n7, 165, 166,

433

168–173, 168n10, 182, 200, 238, 324, 326–328, 331, 333, 334, 336, 337, 340, 361 Imperial Anglo-Indian Association, 20, 72 Imperialism, 87, 308, 314, 415 Imperial Legislative Council, 67 Independence, 7, 9, 12, 27, 29, 41, 56, 57, 73, 79, 86, 99, 100, 103, 111, 114, 119, 124–126, 128, 131, 134, 140, 172, 210, 213, 215, 216, 221, 226, 241, 254n2, 269, 271, 282, 283, 289, 324, 328, 331, 333, 335, 347, 359, 374, 381, 381n22, 383, 384, 386, 393, 412, 416, 416n1, 416n2, 417, 423–425 Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), 146, 146n15, 290 Indianization (Indianisation), 7, 55, 82, 94 Indian languages, 285, 291, 299 Indian Mutiny the Revolt of 1857 the First War of Independence the Mutiny, 19, 119, 416, 416n2 Indigenous, 9, 33, 45, 114, 115, 178, 192, 210, 315, 316, 318, 362, 423 Indo-French, 12, 371–388 Indumathi, S., 285, 286, 292 Informant, 178, 282, 287, 288, 290, 293 Integration, 100, 102, 126, 155, 156, 165–168, 173, 184, 237, 328 Intergenerational memory, 358, 367 International schools, 283, 292, 299 Interracial, 85, 280, 284, 361, 361n7 Invisibility, 156, 168, 168n10, 169, 172, 182, 184, 189, 200, 226, 361, 410

434 

INDEX

J Jadavpur, 145, 146 Jamaica, 157, 326 James, S.P., 28, 32, 43, 232, 236, 237 Jinnah, M., 84, 102, 210 K Kalimpong, 18, 183, 187 Kali Pujas, 145 Kharagpur, 238, 347, 425 Khurshid, A., 216, 286 Kinship, 53, 67, 285, 338, 356n5, 393 Kipling, R., 86, 157, 401, 414 Kirk, J., 286, 292, 297 Ko, S. S., 377n16 Kochi, 343, 344, 347, 349, 350 Kolkata, 5, 7, 31, 32n37, 131–151, 205n1, 231, 273n20, 280, 282, 283, 285 L Lady of Avila, 381 Lahiri, S., 115 La Martiniere, 146 Language, 4, 5, 18, 26, 30, 31, 45, 46, 54, 73, 90, 120, 124, 126, 134, 143, 144, 146, 147, 167, 172, 180, 181, 181n5, 200, 244, 245, 258, 267, 271, 282n2, 284, 285, 291, 299, 310n2, 312, 328, 349, 360, 362, 376n14, 384, 394, 414, 416, 418 Latin Catholics, 349n4 Legislative Assembly, 308, 317 Letherby, G., 287 Levy, A., 160n7 LGBTIQA+, 10, 305, 305n1, 310, 311, 313–316, 318 Lobo, M., 182, 237

Lok Sabha, 28, 28n21, 119, 268n16, 307–308 Lucknow, 417 Luso-Indians, 75, 346, 348, 361, 361n8 Lytton, Lord, 19 M Macaulay’s Minute, 47 Maclure, H., 219, 280, 306 Madge, W.C., 67 Madras/Chennai, 1, 3, 5, 18, 20, 22, 31, 38, 40, 41, 43–45, 50, 52, 53, 58, 59, 65, 66, 125, 205, 205n1, 207, 213, 254n2, 282, 284, 291, 293, 305, 315, 347, 393, 397, 418 Magical realism, 411, 415–418, 425 Magnússon, S.G., 232–234, 243 Mahar, 119 Maharashtra, 139, 245 Mahé/Mahéan/Mayyazhi, 11, 12, 371–388 Maidenhead, 163, 169 Maji, S., 6, 11 Malabar, 375 Malayalam, 11, 30, 343, 343n1, 344, 348, 350, 356n5, 360n6, 362, 371n1, 372, 373n6, 374, 377n15, 384, 387n24 Malleson, G.B., 375, 375n11 Manjrekar, N., 286, 294 Mann, R., 162 Manto, S.H., 265, 266, 268n14, 271n17 Māori, 9, 68, 178, 181, 181n4, 181n5, 182, 187, 190–194, 200 Marginalisation(marginalization)/ marginality, 117, 256, 261–264, 289, 315, 350, 362, 367 Market, 139, 283, 300

 INDEX 

Marriage, 17, 48, 86, 123, 125, 135, 208, 221, 238, 259, 280, 286, 292, 314, 352, 355, 357, 358, 361, 365, 381, 410, 411 Martineau, A., 375 Marxism, 309 Marxist, 143 Masculinity, 259, 354–362, 366 Masters, J., 258 Bhowani Junction, 258, 324, 328 Maternal instincts, 286 McCabe, J., 183, 187, 193 McCluskiegung, 127 McGowan, A., 80 McGready-Buffardi, P., 11, 323, 330–333, 339 McMenamin, D., 9, 85, 97, 99, 102, 186, 187, 206, 208–215, 214n10, 271 Mehta, G, 258 Melbourne, 120n6, 135n2, 324, 336, 337, 393 Melbourne Reunion, 127 Membership, 25, 30–32, 57, 65, 113, 124, 138, 138n6, 180, 214, 289 Memory, 11, 24, 70, 209, 231, 324, 331, 332, 337, 340, 343–346, 349–358, 362, 363, 367, 396, 414, 420, 422, 424 Memory Studies, 3, 6, 11, 344–347, 349 Metaphor, 345, 353, 355, 415, 416 Metissage, 255 Microhistory, 6, 231–248, 373, 373n3, 376, 382 Middle-class, 121n13, 142, 143, 213, 293, 308, 337 Midnight’s Orphans, 4, 254n2, 393, 394, 396, 405 Migration, 29, 30, 32, 33, 57, 119, 120, 125, 134–137, 140,

435

184–185, 190, 219, 232, 234–237, 247, 248, 286, 312 Mimesis, 160, 170 Mimetic representation, 243 Minority community/minoritization, 10, 27, 29, 33, 122n16, 137, 138, 150, 165, 232, 235, 305, 307, 310, 314, 319, 330, 335, 344, 347, 367 Miranda, J., 11, 343, 343n1, 344, 349, 352, 354, 355, 362, 367 Miscegenation, 208, 348, 360, 361, 367 Misidentification, 9, 158, 188, 189n10, 191–192 Misrepresent, 72, 122, 415 Mitra, S., 113, 113n2, 136, 137 Mixed race community, 44, 59, 63, 128, 261, 262, 262n8, 397 Mizutani, S., 19, 20 Moch, L. P., 120, 236 Modernity, 242, 313, 347, 350, 362, 366 Mohan, R. V., 114n3 Monoglossia, 244 Montague Chelmsford Reforms, 55, 281 Morris, T., 9, 231–248 Mosaic identities, 172 Motherhood, 285, 286 Mother tongue, 2, 29, 30, 121, 134, 183, 263, 281, 289, 347, 348, 348n3, 350 Movie, 121, 122, 360n6 Mukundan, M., 12, 372–374, 372n2, 373n5, 373n6, 376, 378, 382, 388 Daivathinte Vikruthikal, 12, 371–388 Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil, 374

436 

INDEX

Multiculturalism, 155, 165–169, 171, 239, 324, 336, 338 Multiracial, 116, 184 Muslims, 48, 55, 86, 87, 98, 102, 114n3, 125, 137, 138, 140, 142, 159–161, 163, 168, 170, 208, 209, 211, 216, 218–224, 227, 260, 265, 266, 269, 271, 281, 283, 305, 413, 414 Muthiah, S., 218, 219, 280 Myall, E., 32 N Nagel, C., 165, 168 Nagel, J., 113 Naipaul, V.S, 327 Naples, 132, 133 Nation, 2, 8–10, 23, 42, 46, 48, 48n5, 49, 55, 63, 100–103, 113n2, 125, 127, 131–134, 137–140, 138n6, 147, 149, 150, 156n3, 160, 162, 163, 167, 169, 170, 191, 192, 200, 210–211, 218, 227, 236, 239–247, 254–257, 267–273, 272n19, 284, 299, 304, 305, 307–311, 313, 316, 319, 324, 326–331, 333, 335, 336, 338, 346, 373n3, 388, 414, 423 Nationalism, 5, 7, 9, 10, 55, 56, 59, 71, 92, 94–95, 103, 113n2, 155, 243, 246, 253–255, 267–273, 281, 304, 306, 310, 313, 316, 423 Nation building, 289, 292 Native Americans, 114 Nehru, J., 84, 96, 102, 103, 210, 254n2, 307, 419, 423 New Delhi, 18, 25 New Year, 148, 366

New Zealand, 5, 6, 8, 9, 29, 112, 178–201, 206, 331, 409, 411, 424 Nostalgia, 156, 171, 231, 242, 257, 331, 332, 346 O Oakley, A., 295 Objectification, 284 O’Brien, B., 142 O’Brien, N., 143 Oommen, S. A., 12 Oral histories, 79, 80, 187, 206, 214, 284 Organisational ‘cuddle,’ 149 Orientals, 170, 171 Other/Othering, 122, 134, 195, 216, 256, 257, 269, 270, 398, 419, 422 Otto, B.H., 5–7, 183, 280, 281, 283, 284 Outsiders, 3, 8, 124, 158, 167, 208, 264, 266, 267, 386, 388, 399 Oxbridge, 123n17 P Pakistan, 6–9, 63–103, 205–227, 268, 271, 286, 305, 308, 315, 416n1 Panikkar, K.N., 373, 374 Pardo, I., 132, 133, 137 Parental Academic Institution, 18, 83 Parikh, B., 163 Park, R.E., 173 Parliament in London, 47, 262 Parmar, S., 169–171 Parsis, 55, 122n16, 271 Partition, 7, 56, 63, 87, 98, 206, 210–213, 254, 254n1, 268, 270, 271, 271n17, 305

 INDEX 

Parui, A., 11 Patel, V., 79 Paternity, 42, 71, 155n1, 157, 157n6, 158, 337 Patriarchy/patriarchies, 10, 253, 254, 256, 257, 265, 267, 285, 299, 357, 366 patriarchal, 78, 86, 256, 259, 268, 268n15, 312, 330, 357, 359 Paul, C., 376 Pension, 142, 148, 149, 210, 294, 376, 376n13, 380 Pereira, A., 117 Photographs, 3, 76, 233, 240, 240n4, 400, 401, 410, 411, 424 Pilgrimage, 24, 355, 363, 366 Plurality, 423, 425 Pondicherry/Puducherry, 18, 366, 373, 374, 376, 376n13, 376n14, 377n16, 379, 380 Portuguese, 4, 6, 30, 31, 45, 80, 118, 159, 268, 343, 348–350, 352, 360–362, 361n7 Paranki, 348, 350, 360, 361 Postcolonialism, 253, 421 Postmodern, xiii Post-race paradigm, 159 Powell, E., 162, 304 Prato, G.B., 133, 134, 137, 148 Pre-marital sex, 164 Prime Minister, 96, 165, 173, 210, 258n4 Purity, 113, 118, 136, 150, 356, 361, 362 Pyke, J., 11, 323, 324, 330, 333–335, 336n1, 339 Q Quotas, 27, 55, 119, 135, 136, 333

437

R Race racial segregation, 157 racism, 81, 118, 167, 179–184, 188, 193–195, 200, 255, 260n6, 261, 304, 326, 334, 336 Rai, A., 376n13 Railways railway colony, 74, 76, 143, 214, 241, 245, 258, 335 railway quarters, 242 Raj, M. S., 1, 11, 300 Rajendran, L., 12, 372, 372n2, 373, 377n17, 378, 384, 388 Daivathinte Vikruthikal, 12, 371–388 Ramachandran, V., 286, 290 Rao, V., 345 Religion, 18, 26, 59, 67, 86, 101, 102, 112, 138, 146, 157, 171, 173, 200, 209, 210, 223, 267, 286, 289, 299, 308, 328, 348, 348n3, 349, 353, 357, 381, 394 religiosity, 279–300 Relph, E. C., 383 Place and Placelessness, 383 Remnants, 376, 380, 400, 414, 418, 420 Representation, 3, 4, 6–8, 10, 17–33, 49, 81, 96, 119, 119n5, 133, 135, 157, 232, 243, 244, 246, 247, 253–273, 281, 284, 305, 308–310, 313, 317, 323, 332, 337, 338, 344, 347, 354, 359, 367, 372, 391, 396, 405, 406, 410, 411, 415, 416, 422, 423 Resentment, 63, 161, 162, 173 Reservations, 28, 119, 166, 169, 214, 333, 396 Reunion, 199n14, 245, 305, 306, 309, 310, 316, 339

438 

INDEX

Richmond, T., 66 Ricoeur, P., 344 Right to Education (RTE) Act, 295 Riley, H., 395 Rituals, 263, 327, 328, 348, 351–353, 355, 357, 360, 362–365, 405 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, 162, 162n8 Robbie, C.T., 66–68, 70, 72 Rocha, Z., 255 Rockquemore, K.A., 115, 117, 128 Roots tourist, 393 Royal family, 161, 339 Rushdie, S., 254n2, 260, 327 Midnight’s Children, 254n2, 260 S Sacristan, 350, 351, 353, 355–357, 360, 362, 363 Sahgal, N., 258, 261 Sahitya Academy, 372, 372n2 Said, E., 261, 422 Orientalism, 261, 422 Sartorial identity, 243 Schönpflug, U., 351, 354 Schools, 10, 24, 30, 43, 45, 46, 50, 53, 56, 74, 75, 83, 84, 94, 99, 103, 119, 123–125, 135, 136, 144–146, 160, 165, 181, 187, 190, 193, 194, 199n15, 208–211, 214, 215, 219–226, 231, 234, 238, 241, 242, 279, 280, 282–283, 285, 286, 289–296, 299, 306, 307, 334, 335, 382, 424 Sealy, A., 4, 12, 266, 410–423, 425 The Trotternama/The Everest Hotel, 12, 410, 411, 419–425 Second Boer War, 71 Second World War, 56, 73, 86, 95, 101, 157, 180, 209, 270, 281, 282, 308 Secularism, 8, 132, 134, 138–139, 150

Self-segregation, 168 Sen, S., 20, 21, 280, 283–285, 289, 290, 293, 299 Seth, V., 260, 260n5 A Suitable Boy, 259 Sexuality, 253, 254, 257, 263, 265, 281, 284, 286, 305, 308, 311, 312, 314, 315 Sexual morality, 263 Sexual morals, 163 Shani, O., 138 Shukla, N., 169, 171 The Good Immigrant, 169 Singapore, 117 Singh, K., 29 Skin colour, 156, 158, 160, 162, 182, 232, 237 Skinner, 138 Slough, 166 Snell, O., 17–19, 22, 25, 26 Snyder, T., 86, 87, 102 Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, 87 Social capital, 285, 289, 292, 294, 299, 314 Social media, 124 Sökefeld, M., 113 South Asia, 6, 17–33, 86, 206, 255, 267 South Asian diaspora, 156, 161, 168, 168n10, 172 Staeheli, L.A., 165 Stark, H., 23, 24, 42, 43, 45, 55, 72, 120, 329 Hostages to India or the Life-Story of the Anglo-Indian, 23, 24, 55, 329 State Legislative Assemblies, 28, 119, 317 St Columbus, 146 Stereotypes, 10, 11, 246, 255–257, 260, 261, 284, 285, 287, 299, 313, 347, 404 Stewart, G.R., 232

 INDEX 

Stigma/stigmatization, 31, 183, 281, 285, 289, 315, 360, 361 Stracey, C., 268, 270 Structural inequality, 299 Structuralism structuralist, 234, 245 Subaltern, 7, 39, 50–54, 56, 59, 256, 257, 263 Subjugated knowledges, 312, 398 Subversion, 243–245, 248, 257, 350, 387 Superdiversity, 185 Suresh, A., 379, 379n19, 385 Survey, 11, 127, 137, 141n14, 142, 167, 186, 188, 401 Swaraj, 72 Synecdoche, 234 Syria, 168 Szijártó, I.M., 232–234, 243 T Tagore, R., 268–271 Talents, 10, 39, 171, 231, 266, 296, 297, 297n8 Tandon, P.D., 103 Telegu, 143 The Tempest, 394 Terrorism, 140, 169 Thatcher, M., 164, 165 Thesis, 85, 135, 183, 410 ‘Third sex’ communities, 315 Third world nations, 169 Tilak, B.G., 71 Tragedy of “9/11,” 168 Transgression, 284, 361n7, 364 Treaty of Paris, 379, 379n20 Tribal, 86, 121 Turkey, 141 U Uberoi, V., 166, 167 Uganda, 156n3, 161

439

Ugandan Muslims, 161 Urban, 5, 18, 86, 137, 184, 187, 332 Urdu, 257, 265, 282n2 Uttar Pradesh, 139 V Vatican, 350, 357, 365, 366 Victim, 4, 40, 257, 287, 334, 336 Vishakhapatnam, 158 Vocation, 296–298, 352, 360, 362 Voter Identity Card, 141n14 W Wallace, J.R., 20, 72 Wallace, K.E., 24, 81 West Bengal, 125, 127, 141n14, 143, 316, 374n10, 380 Westernized Oriental Gentleman, 171 Weston, C.N., 24 White, D.S., 20 Whiteness, 178–184, 237, 248, 264, 314 Whiteness studies, 6, 9, 178–181, 200 Williams, B., 123 Williams, E., 148 Woodcock, G., 258, 259 World Anglo-Indian Day, 125 World Trade Centre, 168 World War I (WWI), 21, 66, 71, 101, 281 World War II (WWII), see Second World War Wright, R.D., 19–21, 26, 30, 32, 42, 117, 347 Y YouTube, 231, 233, 245n5, 246 Yuval-Davis, N., 165 Z Zapate, N., 6